Mile 1101.6–1122.1 (20.5 miles)

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Rose: a nap on trail. Any break wirh Magic Beans Thorn: my feet hurt in these new shoes Bud: get to hike through two resorts tomorrow! (Alpine Meadows & Palisades)

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The hike out of the lake started uphill with rocks again. Not a hard climb like the Sierra but persistent for about four miles. From either side of Dick’s Pass we could see lovely lakes. The heat was already starting to climb.

Despite passing multiple lakes today, we didn’t go swimming. We had miles to crush. We passed by the 4 men from last night. They were swimming in a beautiful lake. They hike faster than us so they would pass us anytime we took a break.

Lunch was next to a small inlet of Middle Velma Lake. Too reedy and murky to wake in that end of the lake.

My feet are hurting from these new shoes. They feel hard and a little tight. Nothing bad like blisters but maybe not the right fit or cushion. My knees also hurt, but that could be from the heavy load on my back and the downhills. If they’re not working by Truckee, I’ll go back to Altras.

I’m so excited to get rid of all this weight in Truckee: the bear canister and my 0* quilt, which should add up to a solid 2.5 pounds. A lot of people ditched thier canisters before desolation wilderness, but I wanted to keep mine because the bears are so bad and they just passed regulations requiring Bear canisters. Other PCTers chose to hike through the Wilderness in one day to avoid the regulation (27 miles). Both Beans and I kept our canisters. They are heavy, and bulky and my pack is so tall with the canister in it. I just want to get rid of the bulk. I’m getting tiny pack envy again.

After lunch the trail meandered through hot, dappled forest. Not quite thick enough to keep out the sun or heat. Not quite open enough for good views. Kinda boring. Cue the audiobooks and podcasts. The underbrush is dirty. Lots of fallen logs, twigs, bushes. Made it hard to go off trail for the bathroom. I passed a couple trail crews and a dozen day hikers.

Beans waited for me at the end of Desolation Wilderness. Again, I had to take off my shoes from my hurting feet. 16 miles in and another 5 to go, we were tired. We laid down half on the trail, half off and took a 15 minute nap. I heard at least two people who quietly stepped over us.

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The remaining trail was quite lovely with beautiful wildflowers. We joined Pots and Maverick at their campsite. Pots announced it was his birthday, and he was going to make a small fire. The four TRTers from the night before joined us from their campsite on the other side of the creek and three other TRTers joined our camp too. We didn’t have a campfire but all congregated around it for dinner anyways.

At camp: Beans, Pots, Maverick, 8 TRTers