Day 79, July 5: Lake Tahoe/Mile 1092 to 1098
Start: Echo Chalet - Mile 1092.3
End: Aloha Lake - Mile 1098.4
Miles: 6.1
Ascent: 1220 | Descent: 489
Ugh. A very stressful day.
I woke up in the hotel and furiously finished blogging (again). I rode an electric scooter to Cathole’s hotel as I was going to borrow his sleeping pad since mine popped and he had bought a new, lighter one. I walked to FedEx to pick up my new phone and mail home my popped sleeping pad, which I’ll deal with fixing later. I went to Starbucks to get something to munch on while trying to set up my phone, but the setup wouldn’t work with their wifi.
Frustrated, I went to the grocery to knock out another chore- another resupply, as I had realized I wanted to send a package of food to Sierra City. I quickly bought food things and went back to the FedEx store to mail that package. I tried to switch over my phone there, and it was starting to work but it was taking forever. Realizing I needed to go back to the hotel to check out, I paused the phone transfer and scootered back to the hotel. I was starting to get stressed out as it didn’t seem like I wouldn’t get everything done in time, and precious hours of daylight were ticking away.
After we checked out of the hotel, I sat outside in the parking lot so I could keep using the wifi. While it was going, I chatted with a hiker named Bounce who had been staying in the same hotel for a number of days while being sick. He was friendly and I enjoyed the distraction from the frustratingly slow work. I couldn’t get the transfer to complete so I walked to the Verizon store nearby (thank goodness Tahoe had one, and within walking distance from me!), and it finally all worked. Then I went back to the FedEx store to mail my old phone back and be DONE.
In the time that I was dealing with my phone stuff, Squirrel and Stem had found a ride back to the trail from a kind older gentleman who lived in town and loved to help PCT hikers. I hopped in his truck and we were off. The girls had gone to the post office to pick up one of their packages and had grabbed one for me that my sweet friend Ann had sent, which had a note and a tshirt. Thank you Ann! ☺️
We made it back to the Echo Chalet, very close to where we got off trail. We said a thank you to our driver and hopped out. After using the restroom and getting the last few things situated, we started the hike out. I did not want to hike as my foot was hurting and I was feeling very frazzled from the phone fiasco, but I had to hike out at least a few miles as camping was prohibited around Echo Lake.
The Calzones and I made to Aloha Lake for camp. It was beautiful, though I was a bit nervous to camp there as there had been recent reports of bears stealing people’s food and being aggressive in the area. But ultimately, my exhaustion won out over my apprehension and I decided to camp there, hoping for the best (it ended up fine; we had no bear encounters). We ate dinner together- I had some leftover pizza and a few extra snacks- and fell asleep, exhausted.