Tahoe Rim Trail – Day 11

Daily Miles: 22

Total Miles: 161

We actually had to set our alarms this morning to make sure we got up early.  Other mornings on this trip, we have just relied on being woken up by the sounds of our friends packing up.

When SweetPea got up, she realized that the shoelaces on one of her shoes had been chewed on by some critter overnight.  Whatever it was chewed quite a bit and SweetPea had to get pretty creative with how she could tie up her shoe with the remaining pieces of shoelace.

As we headed out, it was nice and cool.  The trail remained very quiet for the first two hours.  At that point, we stopped at the only water source for the day (and the only water source for the next 17 miles).  Another TRT hiker came by and then another two.  For the rest of the day, we regularly saw either day hikers or TRT hikers.

For the past two days, we have been seeing trees along the trail corridor that have been flagged for logging.  One section we walked through yesterday looked like it had been logged already.  Today we walked through a section that was actively being logged.  There were signs warning hikers to “watch for falling trees”.

We crossed over the busy road at Brockway Summit and then stopped in a shady spot for lunch.  There were lots of day hikers coming down the trail as we sat and relaxed.  We wondered what the popular destination was for all these folks, and realized as we started to walk after lunch that they must have gone up to a picnic viewpoint spot not too far up the trail.

The afternoon was basically all climbing.  We got some great views of Lake Tahoe, and SweetPea thinks the lake views from the northern perspective are the best of any part of the trail.  We got to the CA/NV state line and headed back into Nevada.

We were aiming for a specific small area this evening for camping.  We were up high (our highest camp of the trip) and often the trees are really small, but we were hopeful to find tolerable hangs.

As we got to the spot we were hoping to camp, there were several hikers taking a break on the side of the trail.  One hiker, Smiles, recognized Beardoh from hiking the PCT in 2012.  The other hiker, Mismatch, had gotten his trail name from Qball in 2012.  It is always so fun when these “small world” run-ins happen.  We chatted with them for a bit and then started to look for our hammock spots.

We found tolerable hang spots within a little cluster of trees.  It feels like we are camped in a cramped hovel.  But we are on the top of a narrow ridge with beautiful views.  And there are no mosquitoes!  Yeah!

Beardoh’s knee was feeling quite sore by the end of the day.  Not sure if it was all the climbing today or the bigger miles the last two days.  But tomorrow will be a shorter day, with more downhill as we finish up the trail.  Then his knee can have some relaxing time off-trail.