Second Section Complete

I have made it to the town of Truckee, mile 1153.4. I've started trying to drastically up my mileage because my girlfriend, Alicia, is coming out for a few days on the 25th and we plan to meet at Old Station. It seems like a good spot to meet up, there looks to be about 40 easy miles from there to Burney so it is a convenient place for her to do a few days on trail with me. The only downside is Old Station is at mile 1370.9. The result is really trying to hammer out some miles over the two weeks before she gets here.

Luckily, the trail has been rather accommodating. There are still sections of snow on the trail but most of it is patchy. The few spots that have had total snow coverage haven't been exceptionally long sections so I have been able to maintain a pretty good pace. Between Sonora Pass and South Lake Tahoe I was able to do a 29 mile day and a 23 mile day. I felt pretty good during those miles, which gave me some hope of actually being able to pull this off. To get to Truckee from Tahoe I did a 20 mile day after 10:30am and then a 30 mile day. I knocked out the last 13 miles to town this morning and will try and get back on trail this afternoon to get in another 7 so I can at least do 20. Food resupplies might be what prevents me from getting all the miles done but if I can get in and out quickly, but it should be okay. The goal of speed in town will probably prevent me from doing more in-depth blog entries but I will try to pre-write them at night on trail (which is how I got this one done).

Doing extra miles has allowed me to finish the second section of my guide! I was able to close the Sierra section and open the Northern California section. While I realize that I am not completely done with snow or the challenges associated moving into the Northern California section feels good. Some of the locals I met in South Lake Tahoe talked about how few thru hikers they had seen that had done the Sierras, most of the ones that they had talked to were hitching further north. It seems like I had almost perfect timing. Most of the roads and access points were available and none of the streams were impassable. Anyone behind me will have an even easier time making it through but they might have a hard time getting to Canada before Washington is covered in snow.

I have also started to see thru hikers that jumped north heading south. The overall level of snow will be lower for them, the streams will also be lower, but the fact that all of their climbs will be on the snowy north face of mountains seems fairly annoying. It seems like it is basically impossible to completely avoid snow this year and the added hassle of jumping all over the place does not seem worth it. I do recognize that I am far more comfortable around snow compared to the average person on this trail though. Some people psych themselves out to such a degree that there is no way they could do it.

Finally, since I finished another section I updated my trip statistics. The following are the stats from Kennedy Meadows South to South Lake Tahoe.

KMS to Tahoe
Days - 32
Miles - 388.5
Zeros taken - 2
Avg mpd w/ 0's - 12.1
Avg mpd w/o 0's - 13.0
Total steps - 1,114,497
Avg steps per day - 34,828
Highest step count for one day - 70,195

Here are the stats for the whole trail so far, Campo to South Lake Tahoe.

Trail Totals
Days - 73
Miles - 1090.7
Zeros - 4
Avg mpd w/ 0's - 14.94
Avg mpd w/o 0's - 15.8
Total steps - 2,700,407
Avg steps per day - 36,991
Highest step count for one day - 70,195


For the next week and a half I'll be trying to push miles but I was wondering if anyone had any requests for videos or just had any questions in general. The most dramatic section of the trail is past me so if anyone has any great ideas let me know. Here is one more snow related video before I run out of snow to record.