PCT 2007 Day 94 – Dick’s Lake – Whiskey Creek Trail

PCT 2007 Day 94

Day 94 / 6-27-07 Tarp Tent 7250′
Dick’s Lake – Just past Whiskey Creek Trail
30.6 miles; 1140.7 (48.4) total miles; 2994.8 trip miles
High 70’s, sunny, windy

Deer count is 62
Marmot count is 51
Pika count is 2
Bear count is 1

Tattoo Joe was up first and out of camp by 5:30 or so. We left around 6:15. We hiked until around 7:30 and decided to have breakfast. The mosquitoes had been buzzing us; but when we stopped, they swarmed us. It was insane. I actually walked around while I attempted to eat. We finally gave up and left.

Just before Phipps Creek, we met another hiker going south. She gave us a bunch of trail info but none of us knew where she was referencing. We would figure more of it out as we went.

I didn’t feel we were making any ground today even though the hiking was fairly easy compared to late. We finally caught Second Hand, who stopped by camp as we were packing and left before us. We saw him at Bear Lake Road and when I checked the numbers, we had done 15 miles and it was only 11:40 am. The four of us decided to go another 2 miles to the next road.

We got there around 12:45 PM and to our surprise there were picnic tables at the trail head parking lot. We met one group of hikers with a dog who I threw a stick for. The dog was so excited about the stick. It made me think of Sam’s dogs at home. We saw another group, who pulled in, and who had a trunk full of beer. We tried to get Silver to go over and mooch some beers off them but she wouldn’t.

We had to climb right after lunch and was rewarded with our first views of Lake Tahoe. It was so blue and very big. We didn’t see the whole thing either. Silver and I got water within the first mile or so from lunch; but Backtrack and Second Hand didn’t since they thought there was another source coming. Unlucky for them, there wasn’t water until mile 28, so they went 13 miles with nothing. Second Hand melted snow in a bottle towards the end.

We had been hiking on the Tahoe Rim Trail for a while; but after 5 miles from our lunch spot, we left it. When we did, we had a sweet traverse along the back of Alpine Meadows Ski Resort and the views were great. It was windy though. After what felt like forever, we started to descend, only to have to navigate 16 switchbacks before getting to the creek at the bottom. We met a couple from Seattle doing a section hike and had dinner there. It was windy so I got really cold. Dinner was super good though.

We went on after dinner so we could do another 30 miler. We passed the couple and caught Second Hand who said he was going on till dark. We camped right there and now only have 15 miles to go tomorrow.

I did see 1 marmot up at the ski resort and that’s it. We hiked through fields of Lupines today and it was so beautiful.