What is a that smell? Did someone make a campfire in the middle of the night? We woke up to find a smoky haze all over the mountains. Smoke from a nearby fire must have drifted our way. Luckily, all the known fires were far away and the smoke wasn’t coming from anywhere near us. So we started hiking.
The views weren’t particularly notable in the beginning of the day, but I did get to enjoy some wildflowers blooming.
We crossed a road at Barker Pass and the uncle and grandpa of a girl we were hiking with showed up. They gave us some granola bars and we continued on. We climbed up to a ridge where we were treated to views of Lake Tahoe.
Continuing along the ridge, we eventually entered the Alpine Meadows ski resort. It looked like there were some fun bowls and chutes to be skied here. The visibility was certainly better than the last time I was in this area.
We had a long descent down from the resort to our planned camping spot. We wanted to do 30 miles. It would be several in our groups first 30 mile day. We made it to the campsite pretty early (well, early for that many miles) and made a fire before cooking dinner.
I’ve been feeling a little sluggish after my week off, so pulling big miles like this felt really good. My foot was hurting pretty bad most of the day, but it wasn’t getting worse. I think it’s from the crappy tuxedo rental shoes I wore in the wedding. They were too narrow. In a few days I should be fully back in my groove and ready to make my way through Northern California at full speed.