Tahoe to Yosemite National Park on the PCT

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

No matter what you call it—the trots, Hershey squirts, Delhi belly, Montezuma’s revenge, the Aztec two-step, whatever—diarrhea is no laughing matter when you have it.

And, alas, I was suffering so much from a case during my recent hike of a 150-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail in California that I was contemplating turning around and bailing, even though I was already 30 miles from the nearest road.

Fortunately, another hiker saved the day by giving me several Immodium AD pills. One proved to be enough to resolve my problem. It made completing this challenging southbound section of the PCT between South Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park an achievable bucket-list goal. Thank you, thank you, thank you, ma’am. Sometimes even small kindnesses can have a major impact on somebody’s life. I’ll be sure to bring this over-the-counter medicine along on all of my future backpacking adventures.

I guess the real lesson learned was to be more careful about hygiene and what I eat during resupply stops on hiking adventures. I met two other hikers who suffered similar stomach issues after resupplying at the same establishment I visited halfway along this trail.

Another difficult aspect of this hike, which ascends to almost 11,000 feet though Sonora Pass, was that it required more than 26,000 feet of climbing over its 147.5 miles. It seems like the trail offers little flat terrain for recovery. It mostly goes up and down, sometimes quite steeply, relentlessly.

Adding to the challenge during my August trek was that on several days it was very hot in the afternoons and some of the trail’s water sources were dry. My longest water carry was 10 miles through Sonora Pass. One hiker I met from Germany was bailing on the pass after attempting to carry seven liters of water through the dry zone. He said he sweats a lot and felt he needed the extra water. (That’s 15.4 pounds of water, almost as much as my entire pack without food and water.) I made it through the hot, shadeless dry zone on 3 liters.

On the northern stretch of this trek, there are a couple of long, intimidating traverses to negotiate. One is notoriously unnerving, a narrow, downward-slanting loose path along a steep, exposed mountainside, where a slip could result in a fall of several hundred feet. As a longtime rock climber, I’m usually not squeamish about exposure. But I wouldn’t have been comfortable negotiating this section without my trekking poles, and I certainly wasn’t tempted to stop for a photo session until after I was safely on the other side.

Steep slippery traverse through ice

One of the more interesting spectacles during my hike was watching 15 horse-mounted cowboys with the same number of dogs driving hundreds of head of cattle into their winter range.

Alas, I had to sleep with the cattle that night, and their bells rang continually as they munched the meadow grass and pooped prodigiously in the streams where I collected my drinking water.

Lorenz fixing Kara's stove at Tuolumne

I saw many deer and four bears during my trek, a large male near Wilma Lake, and a female with two adorable cubs in tow near my campsite a couple of days to the south.

Lorenz's meds

I enjoyed meeting several other seniors on this challenging trail, including Phyllis, 70, and Sally, 73, from South Lake Tahoe, and Gordon, 62, a retired school teacher from Kentucky.

Phyllis, left, and Sally

The most inspiring hiker I met was Lorenz, a 62-year-old retired engineer from Switzerland. Lorenz, who is suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is attempting to hike the PCT from South Lake Tahoe to Mexico. He showed me the huge collection of meds he needs to take to make the trek possible. He ships his box of meds ahead so he doesn’t have to carry more than a two-week supply in his backpack at any one time.

Gordon

Best of luck, my friend.

We all need to use it or lose it and get it done while we still can.

Great breakfast spot

 

 

 

Riding Spain's caminos on a folding bicycle

Proving that an old Doug can learn a new trick, I just completed a 550-mile circuit of three of Spain’s caminos de Santiago on my foldable Brompton G Line bicycle.

I’ve previously hiked six of these ancient Catholic pilgrimage routes. This is the first time I’ve ridden one on a bike. The Brompton bike, which has 20-inch wheels and folds to fit in a large suitcase, is also new to me, and I confess to having harbored doubts that either I or the bike would be up to this adventure.

But I am happy to report that both me and the bike proved worthy. I had a great time. I was extremely pleased with the bike’s performance and am looking forward to the next adventure together. 

The loop I rode, which started and ended at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, included 44,193 feet of climbing. I opted to ride a loop because it was more convenient and less expensive for me to store the bike’s travel case in Santiago and start and end the ride there.

Brompton in its travel case

I tried to ride as much of the dirt and gravel on the camino hiking paths as reasonably possible.

But I had to walk (and/or carry) the bike through some of the dirt on the Sanabres route (first path south). Parts were too hard, or too steep, for me to ride.

Much of the dirt hiking path on the San Salvador route between Leon and Oviedo (north), was unridable, as I discovered, at least for me. After the first day of struggling on that one, I switched to paved alternatives.

The gravel on the Camino del Norte, the camino I took back from Navia to Santiago, however, was virtually all ridable, and I enjoyed every moment of this camino, except, perhaps, the one daylong ride in the rain.

Folded for the bus ride to Navia

I was pleasantly surprised by the Brompton’s performance. It was not quite as comfortable to ride as one of my full-sized touring bikes. But it had zero major mechanical issues during the 17 days of this adventure. (The frame hinge clamp screw had to be carefully monitored and re-tightened on several occasions, after wiggling loose on the rough terrain, I assume.) And it was a snap to fold and pack in its cover for a quick bus ride from Oviedo to Navia for the final leg of the adventure.

One modification I’m glad I made was to swap the G Line’s 54-cog standard chain ring for a 44 to give the bicycle lower gearing. With the 44, I still had to push the bike up some of the route’s steeper inclines. With the 54, I would have had to do a lot more walking.

I also was glad I converted the tires to tubeless, especially after I met another cyclist who complained that he got two flats in a single day with his tubed tires. I got zero. The fewer flats, the better, as far as I am concerned.

The caminos de Santiago are ancient Catholic pilgrimage routes that cross Spain and converge on the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of Saint James are said to be entombed.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of peregrinos, or pilgrims, hike one of these routes, citing religious, spiritual or other reasons.

I’ve now hiked six caminos and ridden three, and I believe that each transportation mode has its own merits and is worth experiencing.

Riders miss some of the camaraderie that ensues when hiking with the same group of people over a longer period of time.

But riders cover more ground more quickly and have the opportunity to meet a lot more people. I think it was easier than usual for me to meet people with the Brompton, because it attracted a lot of interest and comment. 

Great ride and good icebreaker. Five stars.

It's a wrap!

Circumnavigating Lake Tahoe

 

Happy to report that I completed my 13-day, 175-mile hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail.

 

The TRT, which circumnavigates the 191-square-mile Lake Tahoe, was mostly scenic, very well tended, and definitely worth doing, I thought.

 

But if the TRT is on your bucket list, be forewarned that it’s not for the faint-hearted. It circles the lake, which straddles the border between California and Nevada, via ridges atop the surrounding mountains, requiring more than 25,000 feet of climbing. In addition, the trail’s elevation ranges from just over 6,000 feet to 10,338 feet above sea level.

 

It’s also worth noting that there are a couple of extended dry sections on the trail. I carried 4.5 liters of water (10 extra pounds) to make it through one of those sections.(Thank goodness my backpack, with seven days of food and all of my camping gear, only weighed 25 pounds, making for a total load of 35 pounds with the water, or I would still be whining!)

 One of things I loved about this hike is that because it’s a loop it was a lot easier to plan than other wilderness hikes I’ve done.

 

I flew into the Reno airport from my home in northern Virginia, then took the Airporter bus ($32.75) into South Lake Tahoe.

 

Since I am a lowlander, I slept in the 6,237-feet-above-sea-level town for two nights to acclimate.

 

Then the next morning, I took the free #22 South Shore Transit bus to the South Kingsbury trailhead and started walking the trail clockwise.

 

I only resupplied once during this hike, in Tahoe City, which is roughly half way around. There I picked up a special delivery package I had sent to the post office.

 Another thing I loved about the TRT is that I was able to get a cell signal virtually every day from the trail’s ridges. I even had a nice phone conversation one evening with my girlfriend while sheltering in my tent during a hail storm.

 

One not-as-nice thing that was impossible not to notice on the trail is that there are clouds of mosquitoes in a few of the lower-lying areas near streams.

 

This marks the first time in my life that I have worn a mosquito head-net. But I was sure glad to have it, in addition to a small container of picaridin-based insect repellent.

 

When hiking this trail, it’s also important to keep in mind that mountain bikers are permitted to ride some trail sections. MTBers are supposed to yield the right of way to the hikers. But a few MTBers apparently haven’t gotten this message.

 When I finally arrived back at the South Kingsbury trailhead on the afternoon of day 13, I only had to wait a half hour to catch the #22 bus back into town. Very nice.

 

Some of the younger folks I met during my hike were doing the loop in as few as seven days (25 miles per day on average), or twice as fast as I was doing it.

 

I’m not sure I would want to go that fast, even if it was physically realistic for me.

 

My hiking and bicycle touring motto is the same: I’m not likely to get there first. But with any luck, and an occasional tail wind, I’ll get there eventually.

Jim and Deb, trail angels extraordinaire

 

 

LA's Sole Sisters

Brooklyn's Zasu

Water cache

Hail storm

Dog was pooped so he was carrying it out

Up by the bench