Adam, Leigh and the Trees

Friday 26 July 2019
Day: 89
Location: Mile 1,034.2
Distance travelled: 17.3 miles / 28 km

In typical fashion for us, we hit up the restaurant at Kennedy Meadows North for breakfast. The servings were actually pretty decent in size, but that certainly didn’t stop us going back to the general store about an hour later for some breakfast dessert in the form of a soft serve ice cream before it was finally time to catch the shuttle back out to the trail.

We really enjoyed our stay at Kennedy Meadows North. It would have been great to stay an extra day but half a day was just enough time to get our town chores done with everything (ie. re-supply, laundry, dinner) all being located in one place, so we’d organised to jump on the 10am shuttle back to the trailhead at Sonora Pass.

After initially receiving a slightly concerning weather forecast yesterday that predicted thunderstorms in and around the area we would be hiking today, the updated forecast this morning was not as extreme, just a bit of potential rain, but importantly, no storms.

Thanks to the lovely owners at Kennedy Meadows North, we were back at the trailhead in next to no time with 8 other PCT hikers on the shuttle bus.

We headed off on our first climb of the day, and I was eager to get through the first 3 miles or so of high ground as quickly as possible, just in case the forecast was wrong as they tend to get a lot of storms in the afternoon in that area.

The walking was relatively easy and the views were great. Unfortunately Leigh slipped when crossing a river and snapped her newly replaced hiking pole, which was a bit of a bummer, so we’ll need to get that replaced when we arrive in South Lake Tahoe in a few days time. Luckily it’s a pretty decent sized town so it shouldn’t be too hard to access replacement gear there.

It wasn’t long after starting our descent that the weather closed in and it started to rain. This was the first time we’ve had proper rain on the trail since I started hiking back in Lone Pine over a month ago! Our rain jackets got a work out for a good hour before the sun started to break through.

It was weird weather all afternoon. We could see dark clouds in the mountains behind us and heard the occasional thunder off in the distance but it didn’t feel like we were in the direct path of the storm.

We had one flash of lightning unexpectedly that was a little too close for comfort, so decided to take a break a wait it out before starting our second climb of the day.

After the rain, the smell of the different flowers wafted through the air. It was actually quite a nice change to be able to experience something different from the daily cycle of heat, sun and snowpack over the past month.

It was getting late in the day but we made the decision to push on through another climb to help cut down the amount of daily miles we need to do to reach Tahoe in 3 days time. We’ll have a day or two off once we get there to recover and make the most of the facilities that come with a big town. Just as the sun had started to dip below the horizon, we found a nice quiet campsite down by a creek and set up camp for the night.

It was such a nice change to have a mosquito free campsite after the mosquito feeding frenzy of the past week through the last section of the Sierras.

Saturday 27 July 2019
Day: 90
Location: Mile 1,059.3
Distance travelled: 25.1 miles / 40 km

I was expecting today to be a bit of a slog and boring walking as a result. We had decided to aim for a longish day of 25 miles today to put us within reach of making it to the next town stop at South Lake Tahoe by lunchtime on Monday. In reality, the walking today turned out to be anything but boring… it was actually the most diverse day in terms of landscapes that we’ve had on the trail since the start of the Sierras. Between the patches of snow, stunning views, lakes, wildflower blooms, and a mindblowing sunset, we couldn’t have asked for a better day on trail.

We began the day with some forest walking and a bit of climbing. Apart from running into a few weekend hikers, we also encountered the most patches of snow we have seen in the last week or so.

The trail wound its way around and over a number of hills, presenting us with good views every half hour or so.

The highlight of the day came after lunch when the trail took us through a field of stunning wildflowers. It was different to anything we had seen to date on the trail and a nice surprise.

The landscape then changed to more of a lunar one, with weird dusty mountains all over the place.

We ended the day hiking through to sunset, reaching the top a hill climb right on sunset and enjoying the amazing colours in the sky before setting up camp in the dark.

Sunday 28 July 2019
Day: 91
Location: Mile 1,081.9
Distance travelled: 22.6 miles / 36 km

We were up early today with the sunrise, hoping for another 20+ mile day, which would keep us well and truly on track to reach South Lake Tahoe before lunchtime on Monday. The sunrise certainly didn’t disappoint, with an array of amazing colors lighting up the sky as we set off from our campsite.

We ran into two familiar faces, Monarch and White Noise, early in the day and continued to cross paths with them throughout the day. We first crossed paths with both guys back at the start of the Sierras but this was the first time that we had spoken with them properly and it was great to get to know them a bit better. We didn’t know at the time, but we would continue to cross paths with both guys for the next two months.

We spent most of the morning climbing about 1,000ft in elevation through terrain much the same as yesterday. There was a worthwhile pay off though in the form of amazing views of a number of nearby lakes.

There were some amazing wildflowers later in the day, complete with all sorts of pollinating insects and even hummingbirds.

Just when we were starting to think that the last of the snow was now behind us, we encountered one last tricky patch that needed to be traversed (without the assistance of our microspikes, which we had already sent ahead in the mail to be collected again somewhere in Washington!). After traversing the unexpectedly steep section of snow, we stopped off at Frog Lake for a quick dip and started to run into lots of day hikers enjoying their last day of the weekend.

The trail took us past the Carson Pass Visitor Centre where we were welcomed by volunteers with cold sodas, a fruit platter, cookies and lollies, and even a resident dog for company. They also had a set of scales you could weigh yourself on. I’d been wondering recently whether I would get the opportunity to experience trail magic on the PCT after missing the desert sections, and this far exceeded my expectations.

We ended the day walking through more stunning wildflowers before camping at Showers Lake and chatting over dinner with Monarch and White Noise. Monarch was re-telling the story of him being amazed by Leigh’s method of crossing rivers, whereby she walks straight through them without taking her shoes off or even hesitating. Apparently this had motivated him to give it a try it himself to see if it was for him, but he was not a fan of this method and decided he would not be converting to doing wet feet crossings anytime soon.

Monday 29 July 2019
Day: 92
Location: Mile 1,090.0
Distance travelled: 8.1 miles / 13 km

We were up early to hike the last 8 miles into South Lake Tahoe and get into town as early as possible to maximize our time in the last major town for a while. We would be recalculating our target daily mileage for the remainder of the hike in South Lake Tahoe, but our gut feel was that we wouldn’t be taking any rest days for a while if we wanted to make it to Canada before the snow hits and the hiking season ends.

The walk was fairly uneventful, but we did get some views of Lake Tahoe as we got closer to the road.

We reached the highway by about 10am and had just started discussing our options for hitching into town when a car pulled up into the car park and the driver asked if we needed a lift into South Lake Tahoe. It turns out Leilani was a trail angel for South Lake Tahoe and she regularly drives past the car park to see if any hikers need a lift into town. Leilani generously took us the 20 minute drive into town, even going via the post office so we could pick up our bounce boxes and then doing a short tour around town to show us where the main places were located.

We spent the rest of the afternoon organising our resupply lists for the next section of trail and other bits and pieces. We were feeling lazy with our dinner plans, so we rode some Lime Scooters down the rode to the local International House of Pancakes (IHOP) for dinner. We figure that we might as well try as many American restaurant chains as we can while we have the opportunity!

Before we knew it, the day was over and we still had quite a few things that we needed to get done before heading back out on trail, so we decided to extend our stay in South Lake Tahoe for an extra night to give us another whole day in town to finish running our errands.

Tuesday 30 July 2019
Day: 93
Location: Mile 1,090.0
Distance travelled: 0 miles / 0 km

We hadn’t originally planned to take a rest day today, but I was glad that we did in the end. It meant that we had time to talk with family and send our ice axes home.

After downing a complimentary breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the supermarket to buy our food for the next section of trail.

Later in the day, we caught the bus down to the post office to mail our bounce boxes off before stopping in at a nearby wilderness office to check whether we needed any extra permits for the next section of trail, the Desolation Wilderness Area (thankfully, we did not).

We had a late lunch at the amazing Sprouts Cafe, before swinging by a few Jamba Juice outlet to try their smoothies (they were actually pretty good and would give Boost Juice a run for their money). Afterwards, we crossed from California into Nevada by foot before returning to California about 2 minutes later after a quick photo.

We also spent a bit of time working out a plan for the rest of our time on the PCT (or as some people call it, PCT math). Conventional wisdom is that you should aim to reach Canada by 1 October if you want to avoid the next round of snowfall in Washington. Given it was slower than normal to get through the Sierras this year on account of the high snow, we only have about 60 days to hike the remaining 1,560 miles, which translates to about 26 miles (or 42km) each and every day with no rest days. Obviously this number increases with every day that you take off or walk less miles. It’s looking like it is going to be a huge challenge to make it to Canada without flipping north and hiking south instead, but we’ll see how we go.

For the time being we’re going to continue northbound and try to up our mileage for the rest of Northern California. Once we reach the Oregon border we will reassess our plan to see if we are still on track. We figure with the weird weather this year the snow may not hit until later in October, but no one really knows at this point.

We ended the day by walking up the road to the California-Nevada state border, before devouring a generous helping of ice cream in our hotel room, in front of a movie or two on TV.