Today we walked from Mt. Rose campground down hill towards the Tahoe Meadows trail head where we officially started our TRT journey. The meadows were beautiful. Small flowinf streams leading to patches of wildflowers. Just out of the meadows, inside the trees we crossed our first of many snow patches. Navigating with a topo map and compass is getting easier yet I find myself becoming a map snob. Does the map have good colors? Clear elevation marks? Does it have shading? (I especally like shading) We passed by and got passed by a handful of mountain bikers. Today is an even day. Bikes are allowed on this section of trail only on even days. We were going to try to avoid this but the earliest we could drive to Tahoe was yesterday since it was the first day we had a chance to check our mail in about 10 days. Our camp stove, a cute little snow peak giga, was arriving.
About 10 miles in we saw dried up twin lakes, a planned water stop that we knew had the potential to be dried up already. Most of the snow on this side of the lake was already gone, just patches in the more dense tree areas. Upon Grant's request, we hiked up an extra mile to this overlook that actually was amazing to eat dinner. You could see just about all of Lake Tahoe. We also saw a dead fawn in the middle of the trail. It was freshly dead. I actually could not see any markings of how it died. This made us very paranoid about mountain lions. On the drive up, Grant read about them liking to kill their prey and then come back later to eat it. We were quite a site trying to make as much noise as possible as we nervously walked back down off of the overlook and back onto the main trail. Grant took what we hope will be great shots of the lake from Christopher's Loop/Sand Harbour Vista.
We hiked into camp about 8pm, finally was able to get some water from a clean stream, and were greeted by some fellow hikers just doing a three day hike. On the north east side of the lake you're in Nevade State Park so there are specific walk-in campground that you can stay at. We walked in later then we hoped but thankfully already ate dinner and were ready to set up our tent and sleep.
I got the funniest blister on the inside of my heal. My feet and shoulders/neck ache but all else is good. The spirits are back up after the lion and water shortages are over.
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