Tahoe Rim Trail – Day 8

Daily Miles: 13

Total Miles: 106

There was a surprising amount of condensation this morning.  SweetPea’s hammock didn’t have any tree cover and her sleeping bag was quite damp.  Beardoh was hanging just ten feet away, but had a little tree coverage and his sleeping bag was dry.

The morning started with a climb up to Dick’s Pass.  The views along the way up were stellar.  We could see Susie Lake, Half Moon Lake, and (once we were high enough up) Aloha Lake.  The cool morning helped on the way up.

As we got near the top, we could hear some birds chirping very insistently.  It seemed so loud that we had to laugh about it.  But, as we turned to corner we could see White Bark Pine trees and it was three Clark’s Nutcrackers making all that noise.  It has been pretty cool for us to see these birds on both sides of the lake.

We were pleasantly surprised as we started the descent down the other side of the pass that there was practically no snow.  We had expected that the snow would linger on the north-facing slopes, but there were only a few small patches of little consequence.  It was actually a really nice descent down to Dick’s Lake.

We stopped for a breakfast break soon after.  Frank has come down with a cold over the past few days, and to make matters worse, he has been getting nose bleeds since our second night on trail.  Not sure if it is the dry air here (especially compared to NC), but Frank had a hard time completely stopping the bleed, so he ended up walking the rest of the day with rolled up toilet paper stuck up his nose.

The rest of the morning was spent walking along several more alpine lakes that border the Tahoe Rim Trail.  It is such a picturesque walk.

It was getting rather warm by mid-morning and the mosquitoes were starting to be a bother, even when we are walking.  We use our bug headnets more today than any other day.

When we got to our lunch break the mosquitoes were so bad, we decided to put up hammocks and the interior netting of the tent.  This way everyone had a chance to escape from the bugs and enjoy some rest.  Some of us ended up taking a nap and others just rested.

We had taken a late lunch break, so when we headed back on the trail, we only had four more miles left for the day.

As we get close to the northern boundary of the Desolation Wilderness, it seemed like the trail maintainers haven’t been around for a bit.  We saw more downed trees in our afternoon miles that we have seen of the rest of the trail.

Once we found a reasonable campsite, we  were lucky enough that the mosquitoes weren’t too bad while we were cooking and eating.  Right after that as we were cleaning up, the bugs got really bad.  We all escaped to our shelters and are in bed by 8pm.