Day 71 – Thursday, Aug. 3

PCT Mile 1090.3 South Lake Tahoe to PCT Mile 1098.7, Aloha Lake
Day Total: 8.4 miles

We ate a humungous breakfast at IHOP, as we try to consume the most possible calories in towns so we don't have to carry them.

We grocery shopped at Safeway, where we bought just a couple days worth of food to get us to Barker Pass where we'll meet up with Stephen's friend. We bumped into Flanders in the grocery store and found out he ran into a ranger on his last day hiking through Yosemite and got a $200 ticket for not having a bear canister.

Despite the traffic, we had to wait a long time to get a ride back to the trail. We were confused when a woman in a car marked as an Uber pulled up and asked us where we were headed. We hadn't requested an Uber but she said to hop in anyway and took us all the way back up US 50 to the trail. It was very generous of her – somebody who drives for money – to drive us for free. She said she sees young people hitching all the time in town and just wanted to help.

Our relatively new water filter had gotten really hard to pump the last few days and this afternoon it stopped working entirely. This was frustrating and kind of scary since waterborne diseases are bad.

I had a few purifying tablets that would get us through to meeting Stephen's friend and then we will figure out if the filter is fixable or buy yet another type of filter.

At Echo Lake Chalet, a little general store where we stopped for a snack, we chatted with a PCT hiker named One Eleven. He likes soda, and enjoyed one of each variety the little store stocked.

From there, the trail took us into the Desolation Wilderness. Our guidebook points out that it's not called Desolation because of the lack of people, but because of the lack of trees.

There were lots of people on the trail, many of whom were curious about how long we were on the trail, and about the PCT. We walked fast all afternoon to dodge a thunderstorm, something I'm learning is common for this area in August. We made it to Aloha Lake a little after 6 p.m. and found a spot to set up the tent.

We watched a beautiful sunset over the mountains as we ate a dinner of pasta primavera and went to bed by 8:30 p.m.