Day 69, 15.08 miles

Finally I had a morning where I woke up at 5am and actually left by 6! The morning was so beautiful, but after taking one picture of the sun across the lake, the camera on my phone decided to stop working... :( I don’t have many photos for today since my camera decides to only work 1/3 of the time, and never when I’m trying to take a picture of something beautiful or time-sensitive! Sorry y’all...

Morning sunlight and lingering moon

Happy had left camp a little before I did, but I caught up to him less than two miles from our hitch spot to get into South Lake Tahoe. We accidentally took a spur trail off of the PCT, got lost, then had to bushwhack back to the actual trail just before getting to Highway 50. We got a ride pretty easily, and we got dropped off at the post office! I picked up package from Claire with my contacts, shorts, and shirt, and I mailed home my long pants, underwear, sleep socks, gloves, and warm midlayer (I still have my warm puffy and rain jacket). After that it was off to Denny’s for a “light” breakfast and some WiFi! 

A happy Happy...

We got all of our charging and phone things done there, and Happy’s friend Goatman popped in for a visit along with his girlfriend Izzy. Goatman is doing what I just did, he’s taking a girlfriend break for a few days in Tahoe! They were headed over to lunch and said they could drop us off at the Grocery Outlet Bargain Market on their way!

That place is dangerous!! I spent $30 and “saved” $48! And with prices like this, I believe it!! Happy and I were able to split some large items like trial mix, dried mango, and extra large chips. We bought this 4lb container of strawberries and ate them all outside in the parking lot!! 

Happy bought 10 days of food so he could ship some ahead, so we hitched back towards the post office to send a box. Tahoe is so cool, but VERY spread out! So it took quite awhile to get around! I was able to talk to Claire and sister Sarah on the phone for a bit while Happy did his PO stuff. After this we hitched towards the Nevada/CA stateline, right to Heavenly Ski Resort. There’s a place called Basecamp Pizza there, and they give PCT hikers a free personal pan pizza! Also, we caught Happy Hour so craft draft beer was only $3!

We met back up with Goatman and Izzy there, and they said they could give us a ride back to highway 50! What a productive day! We had already hiked 8.5 miles to the road in the morning, but now we were all heavy with new food for this new stretch, so we took our time with the afternoon miles.

South Lake Tahoe view while hitching

Within two miles we reached Echo Lake and the Echo Lake Chalet. This place was packed full with no vacancy, including all camping and cabins! This is the most vehicles I’ve seen all trail! It looks like an airport! The store had just closed but we were plenty good on food. (I somehow ended up with about a week of food for 4 1/2 days... oops!!) we walked around the big pretty lake for awhile and then someone totally unexpected caught up with us...

Echo Lake

It was TROUT!!

Happy and I thought he was a little behind because we heard he was planning to hitch to San Fransico for a few days. It turns out he just flew out Sonora Pass, and then took 1.5 zeros here in Tahoe, and just happened to catch us as we were also coming out! We hiked the last few miles together, catching up since I haven’t seen him since Big Bear! 

We climbed up a pretty big hill, and finally found some pretty flat spots to camp in some mosquito infested forest. We would’ve kept going if we had the time/energy, but it was already pst 8pm and we had still done 15 miles WITH a ~5 1/2 hr town stop in the mix! It’s pretty funny, today is my first day back in shorts, and I think I got about 10 mosquito bites on my legs just while setting up my tent. I thought we had a skeeter-break for awhile?!? 

Thanks for reading!!