August 3, 2015
From the Hotel Nevada in Ely, NV

This morning, the owners of the KOA offered to take us to our car!  You have to understand that Greg and Nanci are VERY strong followers of Jesus.  When I called to reserve the site 2 weeks ago, I gave Nanci my pastorreiners@peacelutherangi.org email address.  Dont really know why I didnt use my gmail address.  Now I do.  She checked out our website, saw that "we were all about Jesus", and couldnt wait to meet the two of us.

They are very open about their faith with their campers.  They give out fortune cookies with bible verses to all campers who stay there, have Christian movies to rent, Christian shirts and other things for sale.  The 10 Commandments are posted under the glass on their front desk.  Some folks react negatively, but most appeciate it. They went waaaaaaaaay out of their way to help us work through options, and when nothing worked out, they talked it over and she came in on her day off to work for him ao he could drive us to our car.  We were stunned at this generous act, and deeply grateful as we were going to spend the day trying to find a ride over there.  Another example of "trail magic", or in this case Gods hand at work, using believers in Jesus to help us.

Greg was an awesome tour guide filling us in on lots of area details.  They have owned that koa since 1978!  Among other things he showed us where they filmed the episodes of Bonanza.  (We got a pic on the way back by later on.)  I would urge you to use their koa if you are ever in the area.  Or just stop in and meet them.  They would love that.

We stopped at a beautiful spot on the lake shore on our way toward hwy 50.  I will miss this place.  It and the weather in summer are absolutely breathtakingly beautiful!

We headed east on highway 50, nicknamed "the lonliest highway in the world'.

After leaving Carson City, we took a side trip to Virginia City.  What a cool place!  I could have spent half a day walking the boardwalks on both sides of the road.  For you history buffs, you will remember that VC was the site of the Comstock Lode Silver mine (1859), one of the most productive silver mines in the world.  (We also drove through nearby Gold Hill, a huge gold mine.)  Most of the original trees around Lake Tahoe were chopped down to build VC and for timbers in the mines.  The horses were wild ones (they are all OVER Nevada) on the edge of VC.

Other of you history buffs will remember that VC was where the Cartwrights made their trips to town!

For several years, I have wanted to drive Hwy 50 across Nevada.  We were NOT disappointed!  Lots of straight, desolate stretches along with lots of beautiful passes between 4000 plus feet to over 7400.  There are mountains all along the way and today there were beautiful rain clouds.  It was magificant!  Sometimes we would meet no cars for 10 miles.  Pics never do it justice, but here are a few.

About dark we arrived in Ely.  We are in room 509 at the famous Hotel Nevada.  It was built in 1929, is filled all kinds of slot machines as well as really cool historical stuff.  We did a lot of looking around, ate supper in their 24 hour restaurant, then went to our room.  Gregs been out for a long time and I should have been, but I wanted to completely catch this blog up. I will continue to blog.  Even though we are no longer on the trail, the adventure continues!  (-:)  More tomorrow, or I should say, later today...

August 2, 2015
zero day at the South Lake Tahoe KOA

We are half way done with our goal of hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail.  The second half is going to have to wait.

Today, we talked through all the options we could think of, but the deciding factor was my trip to Urgent Care.  The doc looked at my feet and said, "your hike is done"!  He trimmed the dead skin off my two big blisters.  I am laying stomach down on the table while he and the nurse prepped things behind me.  When he is all ready, he said, "Now just relax.  This shouldn't hurt a bit." Needless to say that did not comfort me! Then he drained my toe.  I asked him if that was a record.  He said probably not, but it was over 1 cc and that was pretty impressive.

When I returned to camp (a 20 dollar taxi ride each way), we knew we were done hikinf, but we still did not know how we were going to get back to our car 40 miles away at Tahoe Meadows where we started. It was on the NE corner of the lake and we were on the SW corner.  I could not find any public transportation.  A taxi ride would have been several hundred dollars.  I tried to call a couple of churches to see if anyone could help us.  Nothing.  It appeared that we were stuck!

August 1, 2015
Round Lake to Echo Summit/Hwy 50
18.5 miles
84.8 miles for Mike (87.8 for Greg)

Greg and I had lots of moleskin work to do on our blisters before we left.  (He started finding some blisters as well.)  Another beautiful day, although today the beauty would not last.  But, I get ahead of myself.

One of the neatest things for me was coming to the place where the Pacific Crest Trail meets the TRT, and are the same for about 40 miles.  The PCT is 2600 miles long from Mexico/California border, up through Cal, Oregon and Washington to the Canada border.  I have been following the blog of a young couple hiking this trail.  They were on this stretch about 2 weeks ago.  Very cool!

Some beautiful flowers again.

The first lake we came to was Showers Lake.  We met a dozen or more folks who had camped around it the night before. Beautiful place.  We loaded up on water and limped on.

As we went through the woods today, we ended up walking about an hour on the rain and some sleet.  No close lightening and it wasn't cold, so we didn't mind.  We just put on our rain ponchos and kept going.  Mine was orange and Greg's was blue.  He commented that we looked like a blueberry and a pumpkin walking through the woods!  We met two young ladies who each had a dog with them.  The dogs barked like crazy because the ponchos freaked them out.  We all had a good laugh.

We went down a very rocky, gnarly canyon that reminded us of how hard last year's hike was in AZ.

I had a meltdown toward the end of the day.  We were trying to get to the KOA for a shower and barbeque when at what should have been the end of our day we missed a sign and by the time we reversed our course and figured out the right path we had walked 3 extra miles.  I was exhausted, angry and my feet hurt terribly.  

Well, we finally reached Hwy 50.  The son of the KOA owners in South Lake Tahoe was gracious enough to come pick us up.  We were 4 miles away so we were deeply grateful for his help.  His help was a great example of what is called "trail magic", when someone goes out of their way to help a hiker expecting nothing in return.)

The shower was wonderful and the bbq great. But when I saw my feet, and Greg looked at his new blisters, we knew we had big problems. Sunday was to be a "zero day "(a rest day with no miles walked.  A "nero day" is just a very few miles walked, ie nearly a zero day).  We were going to rest Sunday and then be ready to head into the Desolation Wilderness on Monday.  But, neither of us could walk, so would that be wise? We went to bed after deciding to figure it out tomorrow.

The toe was swelled with a huge blister and the toe nail is going to fall off.  The pic of the blisters was taken the day after my doc appointment and a day of healing.  They were about the size of 50 cent pieces pulled to an oval shape.

One final thing. When someone hikes on the Appalacian Trail for the first time, before long they will be given a trail name. This is a name other hikers suggest, often in connection with an event, usually funny, that happened to them.  You can reject names until one is given that you like.  That one sticks and you have it for the rest of the hike.  Well, after the last two days we now have trail names: Pegleg and Big Toe.  

July 31, 2015
Star Lake to Round Lake
16.6 miles
66.3 total for Mike (69.3 for Greg)

We started by crossing the outlet from Star Lake.  Here's a pic of this beautiful lake.

From there we had a very difficult climb up over the shoulder of Freel Peak.  I have to stop, bend over and gasp more often than I care to admit.  Greg seems to do this without effort.  He graciously suggested it was because he was 5 years younger.  I suggested it was because I weighed 30 lbs more then he does.  When he still thought it was the age difference I suggested we test our theories: he would carry 15 lbs of my stuff to even out our weight difference and we see how we do.  He declined.  Rats!

After Freel it was a lot of downhill.  Going downhill is a different pain then uphill.  It jars knees and feet and todau it caught ip with both of us in an ugly way.  Greg always walked behind me so I didn't how badly he was limping as the day wore on.  He could only bend his knee about 10%.  So he basically had to keep it straight on all his downhill steps.  He said he was "peglegging" most of the day and was in a lot of pain.  By the end of the day he was very concerned about being able to go on.

For me, I had been having some blister issues, but today exploded to completely ugly!  I had been using moleskin on smaller blisters but it did not help today on all the downhill.  More on that later.  

As we came around the SE corner of the lake we had some beautiful views. 

We also saw lots of incredible flowers, watered by snow melting from Freel Mt.  

As we neared the Big Meadow area, we came across the biggest tree we had ever seen!  Look at that giant!  There are trees fallen all over the place, in all stages of decay, but this one looked fairly recent. Greg's comment was sooooo Greg: "That's enough wood to heat my house for 5 years!"

We were going to camp at Big Meadow, but decided to go 2.6 miles more.  This was a good choice but it really slammed us: Greg's knee and my blisters!  

We finally, finally reached Round Lake for the night. Camped right on the beach.  We washed some clothes and body parts.  First wash time in four days!  I think everything was a bit cleaner.  Again a full moon which has made every night incredibly beautiful.

 

July 30, 2015
to Star Lake
19.7 miles
49.7 total for Mike (52.7 for Greg)

Long, hot slog today.  It was miserable until we arrived at the Tramway Market.  This is a little store among the condos, homes and motels aurrounding the Heavenly Ski Resort.  The trail crossed a couple of their runs.  (We heard there are 21 ski resorts in the Tahoe Basin!)

The high point was looking east into the Carson Valley about 3500 ft below.  (The surface of Lake Tahoe is 6225 ft.  Carson City just a few miles east is 4600 ft.)  We were headed up to Monument Pass (9000).  So this would be the last time we could look east.  What a gorgeous view!  Minden, Nevada is down there.

After the pass, we reached Star Lake (9080 ft).  It was perfectly calm (the wind just has not blown here) and you could hear fish plopping all over as they snagged bugs. Beautiful spot to camp.

July 29, 2015
Marlette Campground to 5 miles south of Hwy 50
15.5 miles (18.5 for Greg)
30 total (33 for Greg)

Yesterday, Greg mentioned several times that the pants he was wearing were too big.  I have thread and a needle and offered so he asked about sewing them up a bit.  Here is the end result.  He liked it a lot and mentioned that he was probably going to bring his tailor needs to me from now on.  Sorry Mom.

Marlette Campground had a hand pump for water, a marvelous feature.  We have a 25 mile stretch with no water along the trail.  The east side of Tahoe receives aboit half the annual moisture of the west side making it more challenging to hike.  Our plan was to hike 10 miles and then hike off trail to Spooner Summit Lake for water.

The highppoint for me today was hiking through about 10 acres of lupines in full bloom.  It was in a high open meadow and was amazing.  Pictures cannot do it justice!  We were told that they had received several nice rains 3 weeks ago so the flowers are blooming like crazy.  Not typical for this time of summer.

By the time we areived at the Spooner Lake cutoff, I was bushed.  Since Greg is a stronger hiker than me, it made more sense for me to watch the gear while he went and fetched about 20 lbs of water from the campground faucet.  So, I slept and rested in the shade while he worked.  I offered him a dollar for doing it.  He declined.  I told him he was my hero!  He did want credit in the blog for the extra distance.

After we crossed Hwy 50, we climbed 1600 ft over the last 5 miles.  It nearly sucked the life force from me!  Climbing just wipes me out.  Greg is always stopping and waiting.  We found a beautiful spot at the top for the night.  Greg told me the next morning that he heard deer walking around our camp.  He commented on how much deer sound like bears after dark.

Hi everyone.  I am sorry for the delay.  Almost no cell coverage in the hills.  Plus my solar charger isnt workong and I used up most of my battery on day 1.  We are at a koa now and my battery is happy again so its time to blog.

July 28, 2015
Mt Rose Summit parking lot to Marlette Campground
14.5 miles
14.5 total

It was 36 degrees when we woke up.  Brrr...
Finally got over to and onto the trail at 11am.  We stopped at a great overview on the way up to the trailhead.

Some observations: most of the time on the trail there was no sound.  Seriously.  No wind.  No birds.  Amazingly peaceful.  Also, the world will never run out of chipmunks.  They are everywhere!  There were huge pine cones everywhere. As well.

We started in the NE corner of the lake and headed south.  There were many pretty views of the lake but mostly trees, lots of trees.  This is my brother, Greg, with a nice shot of the lake in the background.

We were pretty tired when we finally arrived at Marlette at 7pm.  Saw some deer and visitedwith some other hikers. But mostly went to bed.  Great first day!  

July 27, 2015
Truckee, CA
Donner Memorial State Park
9pm Pacific ST, 7pm CST

Hi everyone!  Well, the last 2 days have been looooooong, but fun.  Met my brother Greg at North Platte about 3pm on Sunday.  Thanks Mom and Dad for bringing him up there!

Our first adventure was to Panorama Pt, the high spot in NE at 5424 ft.  It is out in the sticks south and west ok Kimball.

Then we just kept going west on 80 theough Wyoming and Utah.  We finally pulled into a rest area at 4am and slept until 6am.  When we woke up it was starting to grow light and we couldn't figure out the "lake" we were looking at.  We then realized it was a salt flat, the first one I have ever seen.  We stopped right by the Bonneville Salt Flats!  They were so cool looking.

.

Nevada was just long, not exciting.
When we reached Truckee, we filled up with 4 dollar gas and headed around the lake.  We left boxes of food for us to pick up when we hiked by later in Tahoe City and at the KOA in South Tahoe Lake.  Here is a pic of Emerald Bay, a very photographed area of the Lake.  It was amazingly beautiful!

A remarkable thing happened as we hunted for the KOA.  I knew we were close, but pulled into a parking lot to call them for directions.  As we pulled onto a spot Greg said, "Hey, theres a 8 county Nebraska car".  It was nose to nose with ours.  I said, "I bet I know who that is!"  Greg naturally said, "Yeah right".  I pulled out my phone and called Kirk Shuck.  Someone told me last Sunday that he and his family were at Lake Tahoe and jokingly added, "maybe you'll run into each other". Well, we were in the parking lot of the Lake Tahoe Golf Course, and Kirk was out playing on that very course!   Wow!  We had a good laugh at God's sense of humor.  

We went on around the east side of the lake to see where we will start tomorrow and then hid 4 gallons of water in the middle of a long dry section of trail for us to pick up on Aug 6 when we hike by.  Then supper in Truckee and its time for bed.  Oh, every tent site has a big, heavy metal bear box.  We were told to put all food, soap, shampoo, lotion etc in it for tonight.  Out here they have been known to break into buildings and cars going after food!  Another night, I will show you the Bear Keg we have along to store our food at night.  

Thats all for tonight.  I'm tired.  We've driven 1600 miles so far since noon on Sunday.  I broke my old personal record for number of miles driven in a 24 hr period.  I drove 1280 yesterday, and 1540 of all the miles.  Greg was super tired so only drove one hour.  THAT is going to change on the way home!

More to come tomorrow.  Stay tuned and tell a freind you think might be interested in our adventure.  Love all of you!

Mike

July 25, 2015

Less than 24 hours!  Hard to believe this adventure is almost here.  I thought I'd post some fun facts about Lake Tahoe and the trail around it.  First the Trail.

The idea of the Tahoe Rim Trail was proposed in 1978 and the trail itself was completed in 2001.  It is 165 miles long (some places say it's 170 miles long).  The lowest point of the trail crosses the Truckee River at an altitude of 6225 feet above sea level.  The highest point of the trail is Relay Peak at 10,338 feet.  Hiking all 165 miles means a total of 24,400 feet elevation gain/loss.

At 6225 feet elevation, Lake Tahoe is the highest alpine lake in North America and has some of the purest water in the world.  It is a big lake, 21 x 12 miles, with a depth of 1645 ft.  It is the 2nd deepest lake in the U.S. behind Crater Lake in Oregon.  It is the 6th largest lake (after the five Great Lakes) and if its water was spread out, it would cover the entire state of California 14 inches deep.  There are 63 streams flowing into it and only one river flowing out, the Truckee River by Tahoe City on the northwest edge of the lake.

Greg and I are going to camp in the Donner Memorial State Park on Monday, July 27, just outside of Truckee, CA.  Present day Truckee is near where the Donner-Reed Party, a group of Morman emigrants heading west tried to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains late in the fall of 1846.  A blizzard left them stranded for much of the winter in 1846-47.  It was not a pretty story.  Of the original 87 members, only 48 reached California with many of those who died being eaten by the others to stay alive.  

It's not surprising they were caught in a blizzard.  The average annual snow fall in Truckee is 205 inches, with the single season record being 444 inches!  We will see several ski resorts along the trail.  Squaw Valley, CA (home of the 1960 Winter Olympics) is probably the most well known.

I'm leaving after church tomorrow and picking up Greg in North Platte.  On the way west, we're going to drive clear to the top of the highest point in Nebraska.  At 5424 feet, Panorama Point, southwest of Kimball, is a breath-taking vista.  Ok, as you can see from the picture, it's not really all that breath taking, but it IS almost 200 feet higher then Denver.  Pretty cool huh?  Stay tuned for many more interesting little tidbits to numb your brain in the days ahead!  Thanks for checking in today.

Mike

Here is what our bedroom looked like a few days ago when I was sorting out my gear.  It is not quite so bad now.  Out of great chaos comes a great adventure!

One week from today!

One week from today, my brother Greg and I will be driving west through Nevada on I-80, arriving at Tahoe City by late morning.  We're going to meet in North Platte Sunday afternoon and drive through the night.  Ugh!  But, we want to get out there and get the adventure started.