September 11
I love how calm the lakes are in the morning. I started hiking at 6:45 this morning Echo lake is 29.4 miles from here. If I push very hard I could get there tonight. My initial plan was to camp about 9 miles out and finish in the morning. I still have not secured a ride and I’m not sure which I will do. I will see how much progress I am making mid day and evaluate from there.
As I push uphill, the views become more and more wine region, and stunning.
No lie, this mountain is called the nipple.
I have continued climbing, and have a great view of both upper and lower blue Lakes. Upper blue lake has the visible spillway at the far end lower blue lake has the islands at the near end
As I come over the saddle off to my right, Lost lakes are visible. The Trail will go past them within the next mile
I’m passing along the shore of lost lakes. Notice how full it is by the trees sticking up out of the water.
I drop down in the valley, refill my water, and then started back up the other side towards Carson Pass and Carson Pass Management area. The views again are stunning.
OK it’s getting old another snow field! I made it all the way across until two steps from the end, and it slipped down 3 feet to the gravel.
I reached the Carson Pass management area. Carson pass is still a bit ahead of me as a decend down. Red lake is clearly visible
The trail makes a hard right turn and heads towards the shores of frog lake which I pass by.
I arrived at the Carson Pass visitor center. The volunteers there had snacks! Ate some chips, a cutie, tangerine, and apple, some blueberries, and some Oreos. It was all washed down with a Coca-Cola.
It’s hazy, but I can see South Lake Tahoe! Echo Lake sits above it, and I feel I renewed sense of energy knowing that I’ll be there soon.
There continues to be great scenery.
It started with a few small drops of rail, then some hail. Soon lightning was flashing and thunder was booming. The small drops of rain turn big the small pieces of hail turned pea size. I had a timeline to meet so I kept going, the hail and rain also continued. I hiked faster and the storm also increased, finally I had to del shelter under a tree, the hail was getting to painful. It took about 10 minutes for the storm to decrease enough for me to continue hiking again. It’s slowly tapered off. The trail is covered with an inch and a half of hail make it a slippery, and I had to be careful with my footing. There were also streams running down the middle of the trail from the heavy rain. The funny thing is the bulk of the storm hit when I was arriving at “showers lake“.
I passed through some more granite boulder fields, crossed a stream on a footbridge, and got another glimpse of Lake Tahoe getting closer.
I entered the burn area of the Caldor fire, new powerlines event. Strong has her treats event cut, but there are still many standing dead and burned trees.
After crossing Highway 50 I hiked up the remaining mile and a half for travel cost in another small footbridge Evan dropping downhill to Echo Lake completing my last open section of trail between the Mexican border, and Snoqualmie Washington. California is done! I have hiked 2394 miles to date.
I arrived at the Echo Chalet, anxious to get some ice cream, it was closed! A couple gentleman walked up from the dock and after listening to them for a couple minutes it sounded as if they may work there. They had said that the owner closed early today because it was his birthday. They had a key to the store and as they went in I told him I had like 30 miles to get an ice cream and if they came out with one I wouldn’t tell anybody he said I want scoops him but I’ll bring him out a bar he did. I paid him and felt blessed to eat and ice cream as I waited for my dinner to rehydrate. My daughter showed up as my ride a couple minutes after I finished eating. The timing was great.
Today’s PCT miles hiked 29.3
Total PCT Miles hiked to date 2394.1
Miles left: 259.5
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