20240724 South Lake Tahoe to Truckee (mile 1158)

It was the worst night's sleep on trail by a country mile.

Comments on FarOut for the Donner Ski Ranch had suggested that weary hikers could cheat the system by heading to camp on a gravel patch behind the large piles of mulch just visible from the deck of the restaurant. One of the key differences between backpacking in the US and other countries is that 'dispersed camping' (putting up a tent essentially anywhere) is permitted on many public lands. This contrasts with the position of the UK and many other places where the default assumption is that you cannot camp unless told otherwise. However, even the freedom land of America cannot escape the bylaws of modern life. Often when the PCT strays close to roads or towns there will be fewer camping opportunities, either because of posted notices stating that it is not allowed, or because the trail is so frequented by muggles (day hikers) that there are just no suitable spots. The Donner Ski Ranch was one such place.

We arrived around 5pm and the trail approaching it had been unforgiving. The sun had been hot and I had taken a wrong turn at some point, putting me firmly at the back of the pack as we slogged through the exposed, dry, stony mountains. Grace and I were both bad tempered. Not even the surreal sight of a man carrying a snowboard on his back through the scorching hills was enough to spark a smile (I actually found it irritating - what an idiot! He's doing it to annoy me!). The ranch, though, was a welcome oasis. It promised food and shade and, perhaps most importantly, a free 40oz bottle of malt liquor for PCT hikers who presented a valid permit at the bar.

For Europeans unaware of what that means, a full 40oz bottle of Hurricane contains just shy of 1.2 litres at 8% ABV. The inevitable conclusion of this elephantine beverage was that the mulch piles began to look far more appealing than the sleepy two mile trudge back up trail to the next tent site.

This would prove to be a BAD decision.

The mulch piles hid us from the nearby road, yes, but they did not shield us from the sound of road users. It soon became clear that this area was a choice location for petrol heads, tyres squealing late into the night, playing music and smashing bottles. The mulch piles also did not protect us from the flood lights of the warehouses some distance away, illuminating the inside of the tent with a cold sodium glow. But worst of all the mulch piles did absolutely nothing to ameliorate the cloying clammy sticking mist that rose up out of the earth as soon as darkness fell. It was all I could do to strip to my pants and lie sweating atop my sleeping bag, as condensation dripped from every impermeable surface.

I had been sleeping atrociously since the start of the trail in any case. On a good night I would wake up at 4:30am to pain in my upper back (on a bad night this was more like 2:30am). So it was a disturbed night of little sleep, and whenever I did manage to doze off I awoke soon after in the fever of post malt liquor thirst.

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The truth is that the miles from Tahoe to Truckee were some of the toughest on trail. After a relaxing few days in Tahoe resting my ankle and doing normal tourist things (e-scooters, Twisters 2, paddle boarding etc) we had made our way to the Echo Lake trailhead at the border of Desolation Wilderness. Things had started badly, with prolonged rain and lightening storms as we walked around the lake and into the Northern California section of the trail for the first time. Signs everywhere notified us of the rules about carrying a bear can while in the area, as if we needed reminding of the heavy plastic cylinders strapped to our backs. Grace promptly got lost a short while after Aloha Lake where the PCT turns right and the path ahead takes walkers toward Mosquito Pass. For whatever reason neither of us had remembered to download the FarOut basemap for Northern California while in Tahoe. This makes it nearly impossible to get your blue GPS 'dot' back to the red line of the trail without any scale or topographical detail to guide you.

We did eventually find one another, and parts of those miles were beautiful. We saw huge convection storms forming on the horizon, camped by lakes every night, and met up with plenty of friends we hadn't seen since the Sierra. The highlight came early one morning when we rocked up to a trailhead car park where 'Storytime' was providing trail magic for hikers, grilling hotdogs out the back of his van and dishing out beers. We sat there a long time, glad to just stop and talk to other hikers passing through, including one veteran who had completed the triple crown, including doing the PCT multiple times, and was now just doing loops of the Tahoe Rim Trail ("I'm on my fourth lap now.")

But it was punishing in the heat and we were both feeling weak after the Sierra. Even at Kennedy Meadows South it had been clear that both Grace and I had lost a lot of weight, and the limits on the food it was possible to carry in a bear can meant that we had been significantly calorie deficient for over a month now. The long hot exposed ridge walks in the afternoon were not fun, and to our disgust we found that the cool mountain streams of the Sierra had all but disappeared. We now had to actually carry water.

One of the most soul sapping moments however had come earlier that same day when we reached the Donner Ski Ranch. Around lunchtime we had seen plumes of white smoke rising up on the horizon, unmistakably a new forest fire starting, right in the direction we were walking. We would have to add this to the growing list of wildfires in NorCal - already it was necessary to skip a big chunk around Mt Etna and new ones were popping up all the time. We couldn't see it now, but the road ahead was growing hazier every day.

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As previously stated, my night behind the mulch piles had me ready to leave at first light. The five miles to the highway took longer than they had any right to and, try as we might, we couldn't keep pace with the disappearing dawn. It was another scorcher of a day when we reached the rest stop. We washed our faces and hands in the public bathrooms and turned to face the thunder of passing lorries with our thumbs out.

Thankfully we didn't have to wait long and we soon got a ride with a section hiker at the start of his own southward to Kennedy Meadows North (we didn't have the heart to tell him just how hard those miles had been). By 10am we were in the town of Truckee, the last major trail town in Northern California with good connections up to Oregon.

Between the fires and the stubbornly difficult miles, we had made up our mind. An old friend we hadn't seen since the early days of the Sierra was in town meeting us for breakfast, and together we decided that we were done with California, done with the wildfires, and done with the mulch piles. We were skipping ahead to Ashland, Oregon.