South Lake Tahoe, CA (Mile 1095)

We pulled into Lake Tahoe, CA yesterday afternoon. We were lucky enough to catch a ride from a father and son that have a family cabin in the area that gave us a little tour. I know we've been saying everything is gorgeous, but it's quite spectacular here and I bet it's even more scenic with snow. I mean the Lake looks like a Caribbean Beach! It's easy to see why there is so much tourist activity here. Looking out onto the lake there are tons of boats, SUP boarders (Stand Up Paddling), and other aquatic activities.

The plan had been to take a "zero day", but we had some unexpected bad weather earlier this week and we retreated to town with our tails between our legs. Evidently, remnants of a tropical storm all the way from Asia made it to California. For us that meant cold temperatures, probably in the low 40s during the day, gusty winds, and rain for 2 days straight. Seeing how it's only rained for a total of 4 hours prior to this storm, we have only been carrying rain jackets. Without the proper equipment after 10 miles of hiking each of us were thoroughly soaked and freezing. We dropped down from around 9,500' to the block long town of Markleeville, CA. Despite only a sentence or two about the town in our guidebook, it turned out to be one of the best stops so far. Everyone in the town, minus the visitor center lady, were extremely friendly and went out of their way to help us. The proprietor at the Marklee Toll Station Motel even washed our laundry and gave us fresh hot cinnamon rolls!

The halfway point is just over 200 miles away! We calculated out that we need to average around 20 miles a day to make it Canada by October 1st. After this little taste of bad weather I definitely have a little more urgency to make it to Washington by late August! Plus we a have a wedding to attend in early October and family to visit!

Devil's Post-pile National Monument. These basalt columns form when hot lava cools very rapidly.

Iceman cooking my birthday dinner (I cook most nights).

Thousand Islands Lakes, Yosemite National Park.

The last snow covered pass in the High Sierras!

Granite domes located around Tuolumne Meadows.

Tuolumne Falls and extremely annoying tread--it was like a really poorly constructed cobbled road.

Looking downstream around Glen Allen camp.

One of the few times there was a mandatory get your feet wet ford.

Iceman demonstrating the "Alpine Shower" technique.

The mosquitoes were MISERABLE! We tried to take a break and ended up having to walk over 10 miles before we could stop.

Dorothy Lake located at the northern boarder of Yosemite National Park.

1,000th mile!!!

Amazing ridge walk just south of Sonora Pass, CA.

One of the longest stretches of snow we've seen so far, but still easily traversed without an ice axe.

We got a ride to Northern Kennedy Meadows Resort, but had trouble getting back up to the pass. Ended up taking 3 hitches and road walking for 45 minutes.

But we were rewarded with a trail party when we got back! Good beer and company!

Beautiful sunset and moonrise all at the same time!

We highly recommend the Sonora Pass area for hiking and we heard there's great backcountry skiing there as well.

Amazing granite formations with tons of chimneys!

A storm is a brewing....

You'll notice 3 of the same tents and we all had the same sleeping pads as well!

Hitching out of Markleville, CA.

We made it back to the pass and quickly jumped in the tent, because it was STILL raining!

The most amazing trail magic, which included eggs with chili and the ladies got brie on the side.

Interesting volcanic formations.

First good view of Lake Tahoe, CA.