Day 94-96: Zero in Lake Tahoe

I’ve mentioned before how much I hate blogging about what we do during zero days.  Mostly because I don’t make any time to write amidst all the hanging around drinking. 

But here are some key highlights from the last few days:

• my brother surprised me and drove up here from Sacramento.
• My dad brought me new socks, shoes, and mountain house meals.
• My cousin Elizabeth visited from Mexicali and taught me how to make menudo. 
• We went to the beach every day and drank copious amounts of booze.  We also ate way too much food. 
• A massive fire broke out near Yosemite and the smoke completely consumed the lake. 
• I never drove back to hang out with the Lazy Fucks because I was too lazy.
• The last night in town, we all went bowling and I kicked everyone’s ass.
• It was absolutely amazing to see my family. 

boss

pops and Raul  

my bro (left), me, cousin R (right) 

the first of many suppers

face timing family who couldn't make the trip to Tahoe  

my strongest supporter  

Day 93: 1087-1092

After spending most of the night wide awake in my tent - mostly from excitement about getting into town for a long rest and because of all the caffeine I slipped into my “fancy water” for dinner, I was ready to get a move on this morning.  Today’s hike is short - like really short.  5 miles straight downhill to the highway.  

Big Daddy, GoPro, and myself had planned to meet my old friend Emilio at Echo Lake where he would drop the boys off at the infamous China Buffet at state line, and he would take me back to north shore where both our families live. 

smelling up Emilio's car

We got down the mountain in a little over 2 hours - its crazy what the prospect of a town nearby does to your mind and body.  All of the sudden, nothing hurts quite as bad and you’re hiking faster than you every could. 

yep. They look like they've been ate up and shit out twice in the same day.  

We arrived at the beautiful lake, nestled deep in the woods just south of Lake Tahoe.  You can see casinos and hoards of traffic down below in the canyon.  Fun awaits. While we waited for Emilio we walked down to the boathouse, looking filthy and smelling foul, and bought cinnamon roles and beer. 

Emilio finally arrived and gave us a ride to our respective destinations.  It was great to catch up with him.  

He dropped me off at my cousin’s house in north shore and I was delighted to see them. They were shocked by how much weight I had lost and how dirty I was.  I explained to them that I could be a hell of a lot nastier, and have been in the past - especially during those 10 day stretches in the Sierra. lol.

and all the sudden, I'm on the beach.  

Later that night my parents and Jessica flew in from Los Angeles.  We stayed up until 4am drinking.  

The rest of the Lazy Fucks rented a massive AirBnB back near South Tahoe (closer to the actual trailhead). I plan on driving back down there some time later this week to bring them some carne asada and fixin’s from my cousin’s carneceria in King’s Beach.  If I don’t get lazy, of course.

Day 92: 1065-1087

I didn’t have much time to log today because I spent most of the day trying to knock out the 20 mile goal I set for myself. A majority of today’s first half was beautiful and dry trail.  Which made me happy and helped keep good time on our daily progress. We caught up to the Lazy Fucks this morning, who had passed us up earlier this morning while we were still asleep in our tents. We all hike the rest of the day as a group.

now the Sierra is for real behind us

There were several climbs today but nothing too crazy.  10 miles into the day we went over a snow covered peak. 

I saw some back country skiers carving the bowls and then hiking with their skis back to repeat.  It looked super fun, and I would totally be doing that if I wasn’t hiking the PCT.

We pulled over mid day and had lunch at Bullfrog Lake.  So many huckleberries (day hikers) around, it was a little overwhelming. We call them huckleberries because they only come around once a year. I definitely miss the remoteness of the High Sierra. I am growing more and more weary of populated areas.

Volunteers at the ranger station gave us ice cold lemonade, which was amazing.  This took place at the Eldorado National forest station. From here we made the silly assumption that the trail would continue to be a cake walk.  It turned out to get worse, with snow, and muddy swampy messes. Towards the end of the day Righteous grew more frustrated with the terrain quality and the weirdly odd climbs we had to do when it seemed like the day was about to be over. Everyone is sick and fed up with hiking in snow and/or swamp. We are all praying that Tahoe comes soon and that the trail dries up for good so we can get some big miles in.

5 miles outside of the hitch into Tahoe, we set up camp. Im really excited to get town tomorrow.  I read the OR snow report and it looks not so good. But I still have 400+ miles of California to hike before that becomes an immediate concern, so I’ll deal with those problems if and when they exist.