July/August 2010 Yosemite to Tahoe on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)

Barry, Bill and Bob backpacked about 140 miles over 12 days in the Northern California Sierra Nevada on the Pacific Crest Trail. Our starting point was Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park and ending point at the Big Meadows Trailhead on the Tahoe Rim Trail. The motivation for the trip was to connect the John Muir Trail (completed by Bill and Bob in 2003 and 2004) and the Tahoe Rim Trail (completed by Bill and Bob the previous Summer). We flew in and out of Reno and used buses to get to Yosemite and a hired shuttle to get back to Reno.

The first 4 days consisted of climbing up and down and in and out of the seemingly endless granite canyons in the remote northern reaches of Yosemite. This was a difficult, but beautiful, stretch of altitude acclimatization, humid, unsettled weather, deep fords, and relentless mosquito swarms. On the 5^th day we passed through Dorothy Lake Pass and out of Yosemite into a dominantly-volcanic landscape, almost perfect weather, and few bugs (characteristic of the remainder of the trip). The next 2 days took us through the highlights (and trip highpoints) on either side of Sonora Pass.

At the end of Day 6 we thumbed down to Kennedy Meadows Resort, a really interesting (cowboys, etc.) and busy place, and treated ourselves to beds, showers, laundry, and steak dinners. By the end of the 11^th day we had hiked through Carson Pass and made our final camp besides the infant Truckee River just beyond our first sighting of Lake Tahoe. Barry got the intrepid treker award for hardly complaining about the broken pack frame he had to deal with almost the entire way.

Barry and Bill's pictures at https://photos.app.goo.gl/R2CEdRpC79zHJc34A