Trip Report - Day Hike on the TRT

“I provided some support for some friends attempting a really really fast through hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail over the weekend. Step one was to pick them up on Friday. They had covered about 50 miles on Thursday, decided to skip about a 15-mile segment (so much for the continuous thru-hike) Friday morning, covering only about 23 miles instead. Another guy hiked that 48 (?) miles in the same two days. Remarkably, we all arrived at the designated meeting place within an hour of each other.

On Saturday, the four of us, plus a few others, did a dayhike on a 12-mile segment, from the Kingsbury Grade North trailhead to the Spooner Lake picnic area trailhead. Since the rest of the group was sorta jogging/walking and I was merely walking, I was alone for the whole hike, except when everybody caught up and passed me when I stopped for lunch. It was a really nice hike, with lots of great views of the Tahoe basin. The terrain was pretty gentle, not a lot of steep ups or downs, and was mostly in and out of shade. Not a drop of water anywhere, although the foliage was nice and green, and there were flowers along much of the route. The one negative: despite my usual duct-taping of my heels, I got a big honkin' blister on my right heel.

Photos here.

Got up at 4 AM on Sunday to drive back to the Bay Area in time for Cameron's final baseball game of the year. They lost, amid controversy involving a game time limit, but that's a whole 'nother trip report....”

“Nice pictures. What different terrian you have out there as opposed to us NorthEast coasters.”

“That's funny Marty, this weekend I was on the other side of Lake Tahoe in those same mountains in your pic's ! Saturday up Mt Tallac, then Sunday on part of the TRT that shares the trail with the PCT, then we came down Eagle Falls trail right next to Emerald Bay.


Are you guys doing that trail-runner TRT thing? Are you planning on going all the way around?”

“If you look in photo number 8, there's a tiny speck that just might be you. Just kidding!

My buddies have only the segment that they missed on Friday to complete the whole loop. It was Tahoe City to Echo Summit on Thursday, they skipped the E.S. to Big Meadow segment on Friday, but did complete B.M. to Kingsbury South. Then the one I walked on Saturday, followed by Tahoe Meadows to Spooner Lake (the only clockwise direction segment they did) yesterday (22 miles?). Today they were planning to do Tahoe Meadows to Brockway Summit. They already did Brockway to Tahoe City a while back, so all they have to do is fit in the Echo-BM part and they're done! Too fast for me, though - I think they averaged about 3 miles an hour on that 50-mile day, then 4 mph on the day I picked them up.”

“I've always wanted to run into the trail-running guys over in Desolation Wilderness doing the western section of the TRT. Saturday afternoon we ended up at the peak of Mt. Tallac, about 9700'+ as I recall. Well, you probably didn't get it on the east side of the lake, but we got one of those "typical" summer afternoon thunderstorms on our side. There was so much electricity in the air that people at the peak (this was about 2:30 PM) had their hair standing straight up! They were mostly day-hiker types (I call them tourons) who were ill-prepared for such rapid weather changes, and they were scrambling down the side of that peak like you wouldn't believe! We hiked on to Gilmore, rain all the way. Then on Sunday when we were coming out, we pasased these tourons going in to the Velma Lakes area, very ill-prepared. By the time we got to the trailhead, there was rain, thunder, and a pretty awesome lightening storm along the ridges. Can't help but wonder what happened to them all...”

“Yikes! No such storms on the east side, as you could see from the photos. My buddies had no weather troubles at all - only mosquito problems....”

“Nice report and nice pictures. Doing the slide show on a Kerr Drug store's computer, it locked out before showing the "Proof that I am here" picture. Must be something about you that set off an alarm.”

“Similar to those mirrors breaking when I look into them, I guess....”