Day 56: Back Home On The Trail.

July 5th, 2021

Mile Marker: 1108

Miles Hiked Today: 17

We slept in this morning and some of us took a trail angel to get back to the trail head and some of us took a ride back with Journey’s son Sam.

I’m not sure he realized how much of a trail angel he was for us!

We made it to the trailhead around 11 and I was so excited to be back hiking. It happened on the AT and it is happening again now, the trail really does feel like home. The abundance of people in South Lake Tahoe was quite overwhelming. I needed my trees, birds, and tent.

After a mile and half we came to Echo Lake Resort and were thrilled when we saw a hiker named Beans. We had hiked some with Beans before Kennedy Meadows South and just loved him. He decided to take a zero there and then hike out. He was pretty much right behind us the entire time through the Sierras.

Beans started hiking with us to catch up on the past several weeks. It’s always so fun to hear how someone else had experienced the trail. The current trail we were hiking on was incredibly rocky and exposed so we all had our eyes set on a lake dip at Aloha Lake.

It was easily one of our favorite lakes. A gorgeous back drop of mountains and snow and a clear dark blue lake with rocks out in the distance to swim to.

Just as quickly as we had set down our bags, Planner and I jumped in and started to swim out to Journey who was out on some rocks in the middle of the lake. It was quite a swim but the water was a perfect temperature so that we wouldn’t get too cold.

After a while on the rocks we swam back and had some lunch. We still had around 10 miles to go before we would call it.

We were loving the easy terrain and being able to get back to doing 3 miles an hour.

The mosquitos were out so we as a group decided that we wanted to go up to the pass we had to cross and have dinner. Then from there we would camp at a lake 3 miles down.

Each pass we have crossed is so different than any other. This pass had us coming out to a bald where we could look out over the mountains in the distance. It was such a great spot. So much a so that Tide and Bottleneck decided to stay and the rest of us continued on to the lake.

There was quite a few people camped out at the lake so finding a camp spot wasn’t too easy, but we made do and enjoyed the sounds of the nearby creek and clear skies. No rain yay!!