The last few days the smoke from all the California fires was so bad in Reno that the sun was a weird unearthly shade of mauve. Our hiking group was supposed to hike the Tahoe Rim Trail between Brockway and Tahoe City on Thursday but the hike was canceled because of the smoke.
Duke and I decided to do a section of the Tahoe Rim Trial on our own if the smoke up on the rim wasn't too bad. We decided to do the section from Mount Rose to Brockway. This section includes the highest Point on the rim trail - Relay Peak at 10,338 feet. When we reached the Mount Rose trail head the smoke was mostly below us. Four miles into the hike on top of Relay Peak looking west into California the smoke formed a dark brown line on the horizon.
For most of the hike we couldn't see the lake because of the smoke even though this section of the trail is supposed to have tremendous panoramic views. In this next picture you can just make out the outline of the shoreline.
There was still a little bit of snow on some parts of the trail. We filtered water and filled our water bottles from a wonderful spring about a quarter of a mile before Mud Lake. The wild flowers were stunning. Twenty miles is a long way to hike and I was glad when we reached the truck but it was a great day and I really enjoyed the hike. My Flickr pictures of the hike are here.
Great distance hiking - also love your byline "I am a renaissance woman working full time to live, to love, to learn, to be useful, and to be interesting".
Posted by: Hiking | August 17, 2009 at 09:07 PM
Wow, 20 miles that is indeed a mighty hike. Your feet must have had something to say about it afterwards. -- HD
Posted by: HDinOregon | June 20, 2009 at 01:09 PM