Month: June 2018

Day 1: A beautiful start

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Kingsbury South Trailhead (0) to Sierra Canyon Trail Junction (11)

Mileage 11 miles (+1 mile side trail), total 11 miles

Campsite elevation: 8,448 feet

The day started very early at 5.30 AM with our alarm call. The drive to Lake Tahoe would take a little over three hours so, after a quick breakfast, we were on the road.

It was nice to drive through Northern California on our way to Tahoe. The traffic was fairly quiet with none of the crazy driving we’d seen in San Fransisco. We passed through Sacramento and the scenery gradually changed with more trees and we followed the south fork of the American River on our way into Tahoe.

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Taking the plunge

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Today was our last day of pre-hike logistics before heading to Lake Tahoe tomorrow. Most of the organisation aspect was done yesterday so we had a relatively easy day today.

We started by catching the hotel shuttle to the local US Post Office. It was a huge building on the outside but completely tiny in the inside making me wonder what they were doing with all that extra space.

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Getting organised….

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Today was pre-hike logistics day. One of the unfortunate realities of thru-hiking is that nobody is going to organise the resupply aspect for you. So today involved organising our mail drops and first few days of supplies.

The day started off with an Uber ride to Berkeley to pick up last minute supplies from REI. Our driver on the way there was a South African called Juan (for some reason pronounced Dew-Ann). I didn’t have the heart to tell him he had been pronouncing his name wrong all these years.

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In Concord

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This should really be a continuation of yesterday’s post seeing as we basically haven’t had any sleep since leaving Perth. On getting to the hotel this morning, fortunately the room was ready so it was time to grab a quick shower and then head out.

The hotel is primarily a business location so it felt quite funny to stay here as stinky hikers. Fortunately not stinky yet but we will be on our way back through Concord to pick up our bags before heading to San Francisco. The room’s great although it has a really noisy air conditioner I mistook a few times for a low flying 747 buzzing the hotel.

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Inbound to San Francisco

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The day started very early – 3 AM to be precise to get to Perth Airport for the 5.15 AM flight to Sydney. Whilst it felt every bit as early as it was, we were soon on our way to Sydney which is a 4 hour flight from Perth.

At Sydney, we had a tight turnaround. Or so it was supposed to be but the flight ended up being delayed slightly. It’s about 12.5 hours flying time from Sydney to San Francisco so it’s not a short flight but our total travel time was good at only 18 hrs from Perth to San Fran.

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Two weeks to Lake Tahoe

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In a few weeks, I’ll be heading to California from Australia to do a thru-hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail. As well as the TRT, I’ll also be hiking the John Muir Trail from Kearsarge Pass through to Mt Whitney.

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Lake Tahoe along the TRT

The hike has come around very quickly and I’m looking forward to seeing the Sierras again. There has been more snow this time compared to my last hike in 2015 where we saw virtually no snow for the entire hike.

The 2018 snow season has been interesting. March saw a lot of snow hit the Sierras/Lake Tahoe area which means that we will almost certainly see a reasonable amount of snow on the passes. As I am not that experienced in snow travel (read: not experienced at all), it is going to make for an interesting time.

The Tahoe Rim Trail Association (who I have to say have been fantastic with trail info) currently have the following on their website:

March storms dropped a lot of snow in Tahoe and you can still expect to find snow and ice on much of the trail at high elevations and on north facing slopes. Stream crossings and creeks are flowing above average so use caution at water crossings. Thunderstorms and snowstorms are possible any time.

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