We wanted to do a good amount of miles out from town today so we aimed to leave by midday. We spent the morning finishing up town chores and of course we were slower than we’d hoped getting out of town. Luckily Sugar Mama agreed to give us a ride, which we were super grateful for, as hitching would have taken even more time. We said goodbye to Phil before we left town–his parents are arriving today and they will head back to Indiana together. It is too bad he can’t keep hiking as it was fun having him around for a bit!
We finally got back on trail around 2pm. There was a huge group of hikers at the trailhead, some of whom we knew who had just made it through the Sierra bee briefly said hello but it was a bit chaotic and overwhelming with so many people so we didn’t linger and got started hiking.
We had a big uphill for a while out of town. It was beautiful with open views in all directions. We could see the snowy peaks of the mountains in the Sierra in the far distance. We ascended until we reached Tinker Knob, a rock formation with excellent views as well. After that we descended for a while and eventually reached Squaw Valley Ski Area where there was still a fair amount of snow on trail. We had to go straight up but luckily were able to mostly scramble on rocks which was less slippery than the snow would’ve been.
We could see Lake Tahoe in the distance and it is crazy to imagine the amount of people and tourists and houses there while we are not so far away in what feels like very pristine and remote wilderness.
We walked until later than usual today in order to get miles in. Even though we started later than we’d hoped we still did about 17 or 18 miles which we were happy about. A highlight of the evening walking was hearing coyote yips across the canyon from us!