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.