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TRT Day 12

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Miles : 160.8 - 174.0 Photos : Done, Done, Done, and Done I woke up to the smell of smoke around me. I panicked a bit thinking that there was a fire up the trail and that I wouldn’t be able to finish my hike. It didn’t help that helicopters were going back and forth not too far away from me. With the limited cell reception I had, I looked up to see if there were any fires around me. Nothing showed up. I was so anxious that I tried calling some rangers but none picked up. Oh well. I calmed myself down knowing that there probably wasn’t a fire and just tried to go about things as planned. Since I was now at the top of Spooner Mountain, the walk to the next water source at a creek 11 miles away was all downhill. It seemed easy enough but I still ran into some hiccups along the way. I think I was mildly dehydrated because of the gap between water sources, and my post-tib was in the same pain as yesterday despite the taping. I took the tape off, walked a bit, and realized the pain wasn’t go
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TRT Day 11

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Miles : 139.6 - 160.8 Photos : East Lake Tahoe Overlook + East Lake Tahoe Ridge + Spooner Mountain Sunset It’s always fun to change plans on the fly. This morning when I woke up I checked the comments on FarOut to see if there was a water cache at this trail junction up ahead. With no cache, I would do a mellow 17-mile day and then be forced to walk 1.5 miles off trail to a water faucet, stealth camp near, then do a 16.5-mile water carry the next day (my last day). With the cache, I could fill up, continue walking until dusk, dry camp, and then just fill up after a 10-mile hike the next morning. No extra miles to the faucet, and fewer miles to do on my last day. To my surprise, someone had just left a cache at the junction in the morning and left 5 gallons for public use. The trail provides. Once I had the plan in place, I was in a hurry to get there in case it ran out. I had 6 miles until my first water source which was a hand pump at a drive-in campsite. Getting there proved to be a
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TRT Day 10

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Miles : 121.1 - 139.6 Photo : Highest Point on the TRT Today was the latest start I’ve ever had while backpacking. I didn’t leave camp until 9:30 AM. I knew I’d still be able to get to camp on time though since the entire day’s climbing was only in the first 4.5 miles. The rest of the day would all be downhill from there (in a good way) The climb up to the summit of Relay Peak was brutal of course, but I was energized after eating breakfast and hyped because I knew it was the highest point on the TRT. I reached the summit at noon and caught up with a few day hikers that were trailing behind me. I asked if they wanted a group photo, and then they took this photo here. They were all having beers after eating their snacks to celebrate and I named their group “Summit Sippers”.  We parted ways and I started my descent to the next stop, Galena Falls. A beautiful waterfall where I took a nice break, filled up some water, and talked to more hikers. Then it was more descending to Mt. Rose campg
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TRT Day 9

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Miles : 104.4 - 121.1 Photo : Golden Hour at Gray Lake I told myself that today was probably going to be the toughest out of my remaining 5-day stretch out of Tahoe City. The day was spent climbing from 7,000 ft to 9,400 ft. Doesn’t sound too bad, but after every few hundred feet of gain, there was always a small dip downhill. It was mentally demoralizing since I had just wished it would keep going downhill, but alas. This stretch would have also included a 16.5-mile water carry if it wasn’t for a water cache located near a popular day hiker trailhead. Luckily there was still plenty of gallons for public use, and even more luckily I didn’t even need to take from it! Another TRT hiker, Annie, had stashed 2 gallons there days before and didn’t end up using it all so she gave me her leftover water. So weird how such a basic thing as water feels like such a gracious and generous gift when you’re hiking.  The day ended at Gray Lake. It’s a side trail from the TRT but the comments on FarOut
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TRT Day 8

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Miles : 90.3 - 104.4   Photo : Laser Focused Hiker Despite wanting to sleep in, my body got up right when the sun rose. Since I went to sleep super late (the internet is too addicting) I was feeling really tired the whole morning. For some reason, I didn’t try going back to sleep and instead just double and triple-checked my plans for the next 5 days and then stressed about the hiking I had to do today. A 14-mile water carry, mostly uphill, with 5 days worth of food in my bear canister, all with only  4 hours of sleep. Oof 😓 I knew I had to do it one way or another to make it back to South Lake Tahoe in 5 days, so I just embraced it and went along with my day. I checked out of the hotel, went on got lunch with some food to go, and then went to the grocery store to get my resupply. By the time everything was over and I was back on trail it was a little past 1:00 PM. Sun set at 7:45 so I had 6 ½ hours to get to the campsite if I didn’t want to night hike. After about half an hour of hik
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TRT Day 7

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Miles : 67.4 - 90.3 Photo s: McKinney Bay + Blurry Bear I am very happy with how this day turned out! I woke up with a much better night’s sleep compared to yesterday and felt much more energetic while hiking.  Very early on in the day, I decided that I would push myself to make it to Tahoe City. I was running through the logistics in my head, and it just made more sense to make it into town today, as opposed to camping out a few miles before town today and then spending an entire nearo there tomorrow. Calling the hotel to change my reservation back to what it was originally wasn’t a problem. The hiking was also slightly easier for me. Much cruiser and the miles just flew by. I realized in the middle of the day how much I disliked hiking through the Desolation Wilderness. It was pretty miserable due to the constant scrambling on top of pieces of blasted granite which resulted in a lot of slow walking to make sure I didn’t trip and made my trekking poles nearly useless. Maybe I will hav
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TRT Day 6

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Miles : 50.1 - 67.4 Photo : Desolation Wilderness I felt EXHAUSTED today. Last night I woke up probably 10 times, some with me feeling extremely nauseous. I chalk it up to the altitude which I boasted in the last post didn’t affect me. Oops.  I had the goal of doing a bit over 20 miles so that tomorrow I would be able to get into Tahoe City around 6:00 PM. That would allow me to do all my town chores, eat a good dinner, and sleep in a real bed. To give myself even more motivation to accomplish this goal, I called the hotel I was planning to stay the night in and reserved the room for tomorrow night. The comments on FarOut suggested calling a few days in advance since the hotel can get booked up quickly around the weekend.  The first 4.5 miles of the day was a large climb up Dick’s pass. I kinda got into a grove from the middle up to the top, but after summiting all my energy was gone and didn’t really come back the entire day. Despite drinking enough water, eating all my snacks, and ha
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