Echo Summit (mile 1090) to campsite at mile 1072
Total PCT miles hiked: 1166
Due to our early start Keith (Starman) and I arrived at the Sierras when there was still a lot of snow, and decided it wasn’t safe to attempt a crossing given my skill level. We elected to flip up to northern California and hike southbound (SoBo) back to where we left off near Lone Pine – giving the snow a chance to melt out. During this flip the PCT milage will be counting down, but I’ll include a tally of our total milage hiked so that you can keep aprised of our progress in a linear fashion.
The climb from Lake Tahoe is unrelentingly steep. Meaning that the speed that I cultivated in northern California betrays me into going faster than I can sustain at this elevation. I am forced to stop often, allowing ample time to observe Lake Tahoe far below, receding little by little until it no longer dominates the landscape. This giant lake that wee have paralleled for days becomes nothing more than the bright blue bottom of a valley in the distance; from above the water appears calm, belyeing the infinite depth of the water.
The trail is granite stairs snaking through dense forest, steps cut right into the stone made by those with longer legs than myself. The rock, the dirt, the snow, all of it is taking us up up up through the trees until we are deposited without fanfare or ado onto the side of a sweeping verdant valley. Above rests a larger than life sky, pocked with cheery white clouds, floating on high like so many whimsical sky ships.
We have arrived, via this narrow strip of dirt into a land so picturesque that it forces one to stop walking in order to better observe the scene before you. Literally pulls you to a stop in order to fully look into the face of the land. Crescents of white spring snow give shape and form to the rolling green hills, while simultaneously being baked by the late afternoon sun into rivulets of water that pour into the valley. Creeks run high, bursting over their banks as though the water bubbling and rolling through the channels can barely be contained by simple soil and stone. We traverse through the depth of this valley on earth which is soft and damp below our feet, held in this special place by a nature that is kind and good and generous to her small, transient children. Looking further afield I am awed by the riot of color interjected by clumps of wildflowers into this landscape of green. As though they too wish to be seen and celebrated under the sky so blue.
These are the days and moments without compare. When the world cracks open around you and for a few glorious, fleeing moments you feel as though there is no place you would rather be. No place you could be, because surely, surely this landscape is where you’re meant to be. What a feeling to be suspended in time and space, left to simply walk through a land of immense beauty, embraced by the warm sun and caressed by the cool wind, while deep within your bones something thrums to life and whispers that things will be ok.
Transcendent descriptions. Thank you.