The Tahoe Rim Trail is a trail that goes 165 miles around the perimeter of Lake Tahoe in California & Nevada. They have it separated into 8 sections so you can finish it without having to do the entire trail at once.

With the hike I did on Saturday, I've now completed all 165 miles! I had wanted to complete it last year, but my mother's illness made that impossible. I mentioned this to the TRT Association person on the phone, and she said, "Some people take ten years!" I found that funny, since the trail was only completed in 2001. :)



* 5-20-07 | 12.2 mi | Spooner Summit to Kingsbury Grade | Blog | Gallery
* 7-15-07 | 22.8 mi | Kingsbury Grade to Big Meadows | Blog | Gallery
* 7-29-07 | 17.5 mi | Big Meadows to Echo Lakes | Blog | Gallery
* 8-26-07 | 16.7 mi | Barker Pass to Tahoe City | Blog" | Gallery
* 9-8-07 & 9-9-07 (overnight) | 32.5 mi | Echo Lake to Barker Pass | Blog | Gallery1 | Gallery2
* 9-22-07 (snowed out) | 23.1 mi | Tahoe Meadows to Spooner Summit | No Blog | Gallery
* 8-16-08 | 23.1 mi | Tahoe Meadows to Spooner Summit | No Blog | Gallery
* 8-30-08 | 18.9 mi | Brockway Summit to Tahoe Meadows | Blog | Gallery
* 9-6-08 | 19.2 mi | Tahoe City to Brockway Summit | Blog | Gallery

A couple of the hikes varied slightly from the postings. Brockway Summit to Tahoe Meadows, for instance, we climbed Mt. Rose, which added 5 miles to the total.

I'm now a member of the 165 Mile Club, and eagerly await my certificate. Next up: Mt. Whitney in two weeks! Woo!

Alright, boys & girls, I'm finally all rested up. Actually I also had to get all my materials together to post about it. So our trip...

If you click the image it'll take you to Flickr, where you can see the full sized view of the topo map for the trip.


We actually made REALLY good time driving up to Tahoe, and the Brockway Summit trailhead came up faster than I expected. It was probably the shortest drive to any of the TRT hikes I've had. We left my car here and drove onto the Mt. Rose plaza in Bob's car.

A bit about TRT logistics. Each hike is one way, and there's not a shuttle between trailheads, so you have to have at least two cars. When hiking with the Meetup group we always have plenty of people, but in our case with two people, we just had to drive up to Tahoe separately.

Anyway, we were actually moving on the trail around 8am. My original plan was to, at the end of the trail after we'd come back for Bob's car, to hike to Mt. Rose then. That would give us a chance to look at how we felt after hiking, in case we didn't want to continue. Since we had such a good start, we decided to go ahead and do Mt. Rose first. My apology for the lack of real pictures.


The wind, the wind, the wind! It was tough walking around up there, but the view was great. We could see Reno, which is like 30 or 40 miles away. It helps that Reno has all the casinos or it'd just be some nondescript town. We spent all of about 5 minutes up there.


We headed down off Mt. Rose and took the connector trail from the Mt. Rose, .7 miles back to the TRT. Then we got to climb up all over again to the top of Relay Peak!


At this point I think we'd hiked about 6 miles, that sign says Brockway Summit is 15 miles. The views at this point were getting better and better, as we came across the ridges and finally in full view of Lake Tahoe, which went on for at least half of the hike, maybe more. BTW, I promise next time around I'm bringing my DSLR. These pictures suck.



As I said earlier, the trail went on along the ridge. At one point we needed water, but the only spot with available water was Mud Lake, which was down a bowl from the trail. We really had no choice, which added another 120 feet of elevation loss/gain. Once back on the trail, we came out onto the ridge again.


Past the ridge, we descended down into a more forested area, where we hiked the last 7 miles or so. We ran into a few backpackers, who were asking us where to find water, and who told us about how much farther we had to the end. From that point on the trail was mostly downhill, which made the going much, much faster.


Back at the car, the GPS said we'd gone about 24 miles. Back home in the National Geographic TOPO! software, it turned out to be 23.86 miles. Elevation gain +4920, max elevation 10,776'. Calories burned: 5055!

I got back from my workout earlier to find that the Tahoe Rim Trail hikes that I missed last summer have been posted. Awesome! So I went and signed up for #2 on 4/12, #8 on 4/19, and #5 on 5/3 (the numbers are if you do them all sequentially which actually makes the hikes harder).

So now it's almost time to go home, and I'm pondering life, exercise, and the 5k I signed up for. Yeah, the 5k. You know, the one that's on 4/13?

So TRT #2 is 19 miles long, at an average of 10% grade. Am I going to make myself sorry? I suppose the plus side to all of this is it should be a 4500 calorie burn for the two days!

Tahoe Rim Trail #7: Echo Lakes to Barker Pass, Overnight, 9-8-07 to 9-9-07

Ahh, tales of adventure. They're almost as good as the adventures themselves.

This one starts long before the trip. As some of you may be aware, my mother's been going through health issues the past 3 to 4 months, which I don't expect to end anytime soon. With my sister in North Carolina, I'm the only person who can help her out.

The Friday before the overnight TRT #7, I was doing some important business for her. She's been in the hospital for about three weeks, so she hadn't been able to get down to the bank. I didn't get her back to the hospital until 7pm.

I went down to Walmart for some last minute supplies, came home and had dinner with my wife. By the time I was ready to pack up everything, it was 9pm. I was finally satisfied with my packing at... 1:30am.

Day One
I left my house at 3:30am to head on up to Folsom. I was supposed to call my friend from work as soon as I got to 50, which I did. He hadn't realized how close to Folsom I would be when I hit 50 (I thought he realized it was Hazel I would come out of), so he wasn't ready to go. On the way through town, I stopped by Iron Point and said hi to Tom, Vee, Mike, & Christina, all of whom were going on the day hike.

Once I got to REI, it was another half-hour before Tim showed up. We stopped to use the restroom before heading up 50. Driving around the lake, we were commenting on how we should have gone up 80, since that's where we were dropping off my car! Live & learn.

We finally started hiking at 10am. About 1/4 mile in, I realized I didn't have the battery for my SLR, so I opted to take it back to the car. There was no sense carrying around 5 pounds of dead weight unnecessarily! I brought the tripod just in case Tim wanted to use it.

After hiking a while, we ran across a family, and as they passed, I asked, "How's Desolation today?" The look on his face said it all, but he responded, "We're about to find out!" Tim and I looked at each other, each knowing the same thing. We'd hiked a mile in the wrong direction. So we high-tailed it back.

By the time we were on the REAL trail, it was NOON. Hah! And I told everyone at Iron Point I'd "see them up there". At that moment they were probably at Lake Aloha! Anyway...

We were off! I really loved the portion around Echo Lakes. In fact, I've decided that very soon I'm going to take my son on the water taxi across the lake, then hike back.

Tim was having some issues with his boots, so he was stopping more often than I would have expected, and hiking slower than me. Quite a few times, I'd hike on ahead, then wait for him. At one point there was a fork going towards Aloha Lake, at which point I decided to actually take my pack off and wait. I had good cell signal so I called my wife, and while talking to her this dog comes barreling towards me at full speed! He stopped short of me and slid on his paws, tilted his head, then booked it the opposite direction. The owners were apologizing profusely, but I thought it was funny. Once I was rejoined by Tim, we had lunch at Aloha Lake.

Aloha's pretty low this year, so rather than one big lake, it was a million tiny ones. It was probably more scenic this year, and certainly a unique feature. Tim ended up getting the scrubber for his water pump stolen by a chipmonk who probably used it in his nest. Some guys camping here were having a tough time hanging their bear bag, and we all had a neat discussion about how tired the elevation was making us feel.

Back on the trail we got warned by someone about how steep the approach for Dick's Pass was going to be. He recommended we go to the top of Dick's Peak, but looking at the time, there simply wouldn't be the time. In fact, we were expecting to be hiking in the dark for a fair amount of time.

At Heather Lake, I ran out of water and used my pump. I was wishing I had fishing gear, because I could see the fish eating bugs off the surface of the water. The sun was going down, leaving gold reflections on the water, and the ducks were bathing. This was what it was all about, right there! As I pumped, Tim went on ahead.

When I was done, I loaded everything back up. Looking at the maps & GPS, I was expecting the steep approach to be AFTER Gilmore Lake, but boy was I wrong. They weren't kidding about the difficulty of Dick's Pass... the incline started shortly after Susie Lake and didn't end for another 9.2 miles.

Speaking of Gilmore Lake, it was at that signpost that I met back up with Tim. My lack of sleep was starting to be a serious detriment at this point, and I mentioned to Tim that we should camp at Dick's Pass instead of Middle Velma, where we had originally planned. He agreed.

We finally reached Dick's Pass at 12:45am. Being dark and lit only by our headlamps, there really wasn't all that much to see, and most of the ground was similar: small rocks, no dirt or brush, so really not much thought put into finding a spot. I chose one on the opposite side of the trees near the trail, to provide a tad more privacy in the morning. We set up camp, and at 1:30am after 22 hours of being awake, I finally got into my bag.

I slept without the rainfly on my REI Quarter Dome, and I gotta say that was the right decision. I got a near panoramic view of the sky! It was a great scene to fall asleep to.

Day Two
The alarm went off at 7am. When I popped my head up, I got a feast for the eyes! It was more colorful than I had expected, and there was a lot more going on here than simple rocks. Once I got my sorry self out of my tent, I spent a good hour and a half exploring. While I was done, Tim had ventured to the top of a hill, and was yelling to me that he could see Lake Tahoe from up there. He wanted me to go, but I wanted to conserve my energy for the trip back.

I really do need to start practicing taking down camp. Packing up always takes me too long! Tim finished packing his stuff up long before me, although to my credit, he was in a bivy. Another problem I had was there was water on the floor of the tent by my feet, on the pad, and on my sleeping bag. It had even gone through, because my socks were damp. The only thing I could think was it was my hydration sleeve, even though the pack wasn't wet and only that spot had water. Cleaning it all up was part of packing.

Once we were packed, I applied sunscreen, put on my hat, and off we went.

The trip down the other side of Dick's Pass and down to the Velma lakes was great, but beyond that the scenery was more typical of the TRT. Lots of greenery, a lot less granite. After the rest of Desolation Wilderness, this part was downright passe! Not exactly boring, but certainly not up to the earlier scenery. As I told Tod on the phone the other night, if you were to do the entire section in one day, it'd be best to go south to north. That way you'd have the average scenery at first, with great scenery as a payoff later.

At any rate, we decided to actually eat breakfast at Middle Velma Lake while pumping water. We called it breakfast anyway, even though it was more like lunch at 11:30. It was a nice place to stop and eat. Our stoves didn't behave very well because the wind was blowing too much. I was able to get a running boil because I was only heating a cup of water, but Tim never going. It was at least hot enough for him to get his Mountain House meal edible. I made oatmeal with the requisite dehydrated strawberries. Afterwards I ate an apple.

On the way back, Tim got really far ahead of me. Despite having a whopping 5 hours' sleep, and eating more than plenty, the tiredness clicked back in and slowed me down. At 5pm, I caught back up with him and he told me a neat story about how he ran into a baby bear on the trail. It ran away but it scared him to death, so he decided to sit and wait for me.

When we finally exited Desolation and got to Richardson Lake, it was dark. Across the lake was a person in an RV trailer who had a FIRE by the lake! I don't know how they got away with having a fire like that, but they didn't seem too worried about things.

The end of the trail was tricky in a few spots. After crossing the Rubicon Trail, finding where the TRT picked back up was difficult. That one wasn't near as difficult as the very end, when you hike down a Jeep trail for barely a tenth of a mile. On the side you exit, the trail is VERY well marked, with reflective TRT signs. The other side, the side we were looking for, was a different story: all it was was a pole with PCT written on it in black sharpie. At night, this made it hard to find, and there were two other trails next to it. Looking at the three maps (National Geographic, TRT Association, & GPS), it looked like the TRT followed the Jeep trail a half mile! That looked to be the obvious direction so we took it, but it was the wrong one. When we turned back, we finally found the right one.

So just remember, at this point, the trail to pick up goes parallel to the Jeep trail but up an incline, and is marked with a wooden pole with NOTHING ELSE written on it except PCT written in felt tip pen. Keep this in mind on Saturday...

When we came out at the end of the trail, it wasn't obvious where we were. I saw a sign up 1/4 ahead on the road we came out on, so I headed for it. Sure enough, that was the entrance to the Barker Pass trailhead and more importantly, my car! We had made it. I won't tell you what time it was, but I will say this: I went straight to work from Tahoe.

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

After loading the GPS track into the computer and reconnecting the spots where I lost signal, my total mileage was 34.99 miles, almost 2.5 miles farther than listed on the TRT Association's website. But hey, we had fun. All that's left is #8, then my two makeups, and I'm done!

Greg

My interest in blogging has been waining as of late. Actually it seems like my interest in anything is waining these days. I hadn't worked out in a week, and then hiked the Tahoe Rim Trail on Sunday. I was extremely sore when I was done, and chalked it up to not working out.

Well, the pain on the back of my right foot hasn't gone away, it's only intensified. It's not a blister, it's deep down. It's not swollen very far, but you can tell there's something up. There's also some slight redness.

I'm going to see if it gets any better in the next day or so, otherwise I'll have to go to the doctor. It's pretty painful as it is.

This weekend was the Tahoe Rim Trail #3 hike, 22.5 miles, Kingsbury Grade South to Big Meadow. I was going to take lots of pictures, but left the battery charging in my car. Because of that, I refused to lug the camera and saved about 10 pounds of weight. It took about 12 hours, and the GPS worked it out to 8.5 hours of steady hiking. My Palm software estimated about 4000 calories burned, and I think I consumed about 3000 along the way. While I didn't take any pictures, here's one that a guy named Felipe took.


The views were awesome. We could see the entire Carson Valley from the top. Pictures don't do it justice, but here's one that Sheelagh took.


It was a neat day.

Wow, the holiday combined with busyness at work, and I didn't post an entry all week. Shame on me!

Saturday was supposed to be the makeup hike for the 2nd leg of the Tahoe Rim Trail. I got up early and made it to Roseville at 5:45am, but only one person was there. Luckily there was another hike meeting in Folsom, so me and the other guy drove over. This one was to Hawkins Peak.

The trailhead was at Grover Hot Springs, just outside the small town of Markleeville.


Overall it was a nice little hike. STEEP! It wasn't too bad until it hit the scree, then it was not only hiking uphill, but like hiking through sand. Uphill through sand, yup. The views were wonderful.


There were actually two portions of the hike. The first part was from Grover Hot Springs to Burnside Lake, which is accessible by car. From there, the second part is up a jeep trail to the foot of Hawkins Peak, which is a Class 2 scramble up some rocks. Only part of the group took the second leg, so we ate a late lunch at Burnside Lake.

Since I had planned on hiking on the TRT, I had the Tahoe Basin map with me. We found out that it actually had Hawkins Peak on it, so we were using it quite a bit.


The jeep trail was pretty steep. Once we got to the scrambling portion though, the fun really started.


It really is that steep. Climbing up the rocks is part climb, part hold, part pull yourself up by your hands.


In the end though, we made it to the top. Hawkins Peak is 10,024 feet high.


The views were pretty far-reaching.


We knew we would end up hiking back in the dark, so prior to the summit, we had them finish hiking back the other way. They picked all the cars but one due to it being a rental car with only one person able to drive(an important detail). They got the cars and met up with us at the beginning of the jeep trail.

When it was over, we ate at the Kirkwood Inn, a nice little place. After dinner, we drove back to Markleeville to pick up the one car at 10:15pm. The parking lot was locked. It closed at 8pm. This was not good, so we drove around looking for a ranger. No dice.

Back in Markleeville, there was a bar that was pretty busy. Two of the guys went in to see if anyone knew who we could contact to get the car. One guy who was pretty drunk said he had a key back at his house, so two of the guys (one of which rented the car) went back with him to get the key, while we went to meet them at the gate.

Back at the gate, who did we run into, but the ranger! We told him what had happened, and he wasn't happy about the situation. He gave us the lecture about how we should have thought ahead, what were we thinking, the whole drill. In the end though, he said he would open the gate. On the way, I commented that even though he opened the gate, we couldn't drive the car out without the keys, which were with one of the other guys.

The ranger actually stuck around long enough for them to arrive. Drunk-guy came and knew the ranger, so we were able to get the car and leave. It was at least 11:30pm before we were driving back. I got back to Folsom at 1:30am, and headed home from there.

Big fun that night! Oh yeah, my toes are doing pretty good, although they were bleeding a bit. It was still worth it. Here's one final picture that Marko (the rental car guy) took. That's my backside and camera to the right.

A little late, I know, but the past few days have been extremely busy at work.

Sunday was the first leg of the Tahoe Rim Trail! We picked the first to be the shortest: 12.2 miles. This gave everyone a chance to see firsthand how the longer trails would be and determine whether or not they could make it.

Who are we? The Sacramento Hiking Meetup Group, of course. Meetup's pretty neat, it's a way for people with similar interests to gather and have meetings, or in this case, go hiking. There are also a few local Meetup groups for backpacking.

So back to the TRT. The segment we did was the shortest, at 12.2 miles. The others are all over 20 miles, one of which is 30! The 30-miler we'll be doing as an overnight backpacking trip.

If you're used to reading topo maps, here's how it was:



I had a great time, although it was a bit gruelling. The next trip is still over three weeks away... BUT... between then and now is a trip to Grasshopper Peak in Humboldt Memorial Day weekend, and then Half Dome on June 12!

I can feel the soreness now. Here's a picture of me on a peak along the rim:

Well, we finally did it. This past weekend, we went backpacking! The Sacramento Backpackers Meetup group did a short (3-mile, overnight) backpacking trip to Fordyce Creek, just past Eagle Lakes. We left the girls with grandma and took Gregory.

My pack weight ended up being 50 pounds in the end. Angel said her pack was 25 pounds, but it doesn't seem like it would be from what she had (sleeping bag, sleeping pad, snacks, clothing). Gregory carried his essentials.

So away we went. The trail was rated easy, but I'd rate it easy to intermediate. There were quite a few steep portions, and with 50 pounds on my back I felt every inch of it. I wish I had some pictures of our packs, but that's ok. What I do have are some pictures of Gregory on the dayhike we did the afternoon after we arrived at camp.

Here's Gregory climbing over a log.


He had a blast balancing rocks across a creek. He was doing great using the hiking pole to balance!



In the evening, we all made up a story around the campfire, with Gregory telling us all about a frog that got eaten by a werewolf. The next morning before breaking camp, I took Gregory to the top of a large rock, where Angel took our picture.


He was pretty wore on the way back, but he did a good job finishing the task. Gregory was asleep within a few minutes of driving in the car.

So what would I change? I think that trying to fit the three of us into a 2-man tent was a bad idea. It was great until I left to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. When I got back, Gregory was in my spot and I had to pick him up and move him before I could sleep. Once moved, all he did was toss and turn all night, shoving elbows & butt into me and Angel.

In the end, the trip was a rousing success. Gregory got to see things he'd never seen before, including a live rattlesnake that was posing no danger to us (it was about 40 feet away, moving the opposite direction). We also crossed a beaver dam twice.

My next big hiking trip will be on Sunday, where I do the first of the Tahoe Rim Trail hikes. 12.2 miles, Kingsbury Grade to Spooner Summit!

For a New Years Day activity, I hiked out to Feather Falls today with the Sacramento Hiking Meetup group. We had a great time, the weather was wonderful, and I finally got to go to the top of the falls.

More importantly, I had no problems at all with the hike. I was tired on the way back, sure, but nothing like in the past. This is good news!

It does tell me I need to do some stairclimbing, or something similar before Half Dome this summer. I'm sore! But that's okay.

Anyway, a few pictures are in order, of course. Here's our group, prior to leaving.



Even though they tend to not change, here's the falls.


And here I am, at the edge of the falls, or at least as close as I was willing to get.


Finally, the edge of the falls. This is the view through a chain link fence that has a million warning signs saying not to get too close. I didn't.


All in all, a great day. I love this place!