Must be getting back into the swing of things as I slept good last night. Wake up to another beautiful crisp morning. The weather has just been perfect. I come out of the forest pretty quickly and start hiking right against the side of cliffs. Here is a nice view:
Pretty early in the morning I see another clear track of a Mountain Lion. Here it is
Pretty soon however I head up on those cliffs and have great views of lakes and trees below while walking along the barren ridge line. This section has no water and I’m wondering why they did not take us down at least once to the edge of a lake to pick some up. This late in the year some of the creeks that have water earlier are dry now and that is what happened. I was low on water but the applications reported a reliable water source just ahead. When I got there, the creek was dry and ahead I could see the trail out in the open. I figured I really needed water before continuing. The creek where the PCT crossed was dry but I could tell from the vegetation that water had been there fairly recently. I took off my pack and sat down and just watched and before long I could see a section of the vegetation where birds were coming and going regularly. I went down to that point and bingo there was a nice big pool of cold water. I thanked the birds, loaded up with water, and continued on.
Towards late afternoon I make it Carson Pass at Hwy 88. There is a visitor center here and an outhouse. Both of these are equally nice. A visitor center normally has cool stuff like bottled water and junk food which are always welcome. The outhouse just represents a chance to go to the bathroom in a normal way without having to look around and make sure nobody is going to have to watch you take care of business….. Anyway the staff at the visitor center was super nice. They GAVE me two cokes to drink, some potato chips, and one guy went out to his car and brought me a turkey sandwich with pickles!! He said he made two for himself this morning but only ate one. I hung out at the visitor center and talked with the staff about my adventures for an hour or so and then moved on another 2 miles and found a camping spot by a small creek. Only have about 12 miles to go to get to South Lake Tahoe and so expect an easy day tomorrow.
