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Fun zero day & a MOST miserable day (D-57 @ 1124.8 & D-58 1124.8 - 1135.9)

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Day 57 was a fun zero day spent with Ravin, Sunil & Howard, and later with Karthik too. Had lunch on the shores of Lake Tahoe. Picked up Karthik from Truckee rail station and took the free TART bus back to Tahoe City. Had a nice dinner with everybody and then Karthik & I were dropped off at Barker Pass Trailhead. It was the best zero day I have had on the trail. Well, this was the only one spent in company of friends.

   Lunch on Lake Tahoe beach

The perennially delayed Amtrak train from San Francisco, with Karthik on board

   Packing up for the trail

   Dinner at Tahoe City

   Dropped off at Barker Pass Trailhead

Karthik & I were planning to hike together for 3-5 days. We started off with a short 1-mile hike to a campsite with a view of Lake Tahoe, from the Trailhead (I am going to count Day 57 as a zero day and add this mile to Day 58).

Early morning view of Lake Tahoe from the campsite

    Karthik hiking along

One of the many snow traverses that we had to cross, down which unfortunately Karthik fell a few times (very slippery stuff)

Now, I knew the weather forecast called for rain and wind today, starting around 11 am. So I thought we could get in a few miles having started at 5:45 am and then camp before the rain & wind started in earnest. And that was a BAD decision on my part! 🙁. The rain started by 8-8:30 am itself and it went full force right away. We were hiking on the ridge and had no way to go but fwd to the nearest campsite through the heavy rain, brutal wind and biting cold. The wind speed was reportedly around 60-80 mph, with gusts of 100 mph. The rain came in horizontally. The rain jacket and pants that I had quickly soaked thru and my down jacket became completely wet losing all its insulating power. We were thoroughly drenched from top to bottom in ice cold rain. It was simply the worst day on the trail for me and I feel really sorry that Karthik had to face it on his first day 😔. The conditions were so bad that at least one thru-hiker decided to quit hiking PCT cos of this. Anyway, after what seemed to be a never-ending "walk from hell", we reached the campsite around noon and as quickly as our frozen fingers would allow, we set up our tents and crawled in to our sleeping bags to I warm up. We stayed in the tent the rest of the day and night. Luckily the campsite was well-protected from wind. Of course, everything was wet and stayed wet overnight.

Obviously I have no photos once the weather turned. .I don't think I could have operated the phone camera even if I wanted to.

Lesson learnt: never underestimate the weather!

Data:
The short hike on D-56
The rest of the hike on D-57

Comments

[v] said…
That's a painful 1K
June 17, 2022 at 5:48 PM
Vipul said…
What a pic Ravi,just amazing
June 18, 2022 at 5:27 AM
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