Why I Chose the Trail

Tahoe is renowned throughout the United States for its exquisite beauty. As an east coaster, I have little native experience climbing rocky summits, walking in wonderment through forests of massive pine, soaking my feet in alpine lakes or postholing through five feet of snow in June. The spectacular scene captivated me the first time I passed through Tahoe and ever since I was determined to return. 

I had known of the TRT before driving through Tahoe, but had never known more than the name. After my first quick tour of region I new I wanted to return and see the backcountry in a much more adventurous fashion. Immediately after I started my research into thruhiking the TRT.
 

My Time on the Tahoe Rim Trail

I thruhiked the TRT from May 24th through 30th, 2018 with one friend. I had a few intentions taking on the trail. The trail is a marvelous adventure in and of itself and the Tahoe region has much more than its fair share of beauty. I wanted to experience that in ways that cars and dayhikes could not provide.

There were also a few other intentions:

  1. The PCT - I knew that the TRT would provide excellent preparation before my 2018 PCT SOBO thruhike attempt. The trail would allow me to retrain my legs and help me get used to hiking at higher altitude.

  2. Snow - As a native Virginian, I don’t have much experience with hiking on exposed mountain faces covered in feet of snow. Kicking steps, self arrests and avalanche fields are all foreign territory. Before taking on the mountains of upper Washington, I wanted to cut my teeth in milder conditions.

  3. Gear - Over the years I have gradually dialed in my gear to help me to hike at my prime, camp comfortably and brave the elements. I had made many significant changes in preparation for the PCT and the TRT allowed me to test all that gear in a shorter but still significant hike. Essentially a really long shake down.

I was glad to see that all of my hopes were brought to reality, especially the snow. Boy was their snow. My legs came under me quickly. My back and shoulders held up to a frameless pack. I got to practice my youtube-learned snow skills with only a few minor scares. And all my gear held up well.

None of this without a little trouble. We faced rain, hail, dozens of miles of unspoiled snow, route finding, and a resupply hiccup. At many moments I wondered if I was up for the challenge, these were often the frontiers of my own comfort and skills. In the end they were well tried and expanded. And few things are more rewarding than to grow skills and experiences that will better prepare me for the next adventure.

 

Notes for Next Time

As I walk each day and rest before bed in the evenings I try to reflect on what has gone well and not well that day. Things that don’t go well, I try to find a solution for. Here, in no order other than the moment they struck me, are the unedited and unabridged notes taken in my "Notes for next time":

  • Bring eye covers to help sleep at night

  • Make sure all my diddies are useful.

  • Storm matches instead of lighter. Lighter won’t work with high ambient humidity

  • Pillow?

  • Test out melatonin for better nights sleep

  • Not having a bottom to the tent(I use a tarp) means there is no “clean space” to place things when ground is wet. Mylar should fix this. It is frustrating when doing things in the evening.

  • It’s not that hard to shop for food in a grocery store resupply, saves shipping costs and not constrained by post office hours

  • Bag really started to hurt with 4 days food and 2l water, became painful

  • General delivery and post office hours restrictions

  • Bring hand sanitizer, wash talenti in town no need for soap.

  • Reduce pack weight to have 5 days food under 18lb

  • With no care my face began to crack from dryness on day 7. Need solution. This was one of the larger pain points.( I get very dry skin)

  • Efficiently pitching camp including the bivy/bag/pad combo - work on it.

  • Extend guy lines

  • Snacks in bags take two hands to eat making hard to eat while walking. Maybe switch out for one more bar.

  • Stronger tent stakes?

  • Thermarest leak! - swap for new one?

  • Large diddy bag helped with easily finding small things and doubled as a pillow

  • Add wheat thins to food

  • Neoair slides around in bivy. Look into ways to prevent sliding.

Gear

My baseweight for this trip fell just under 10lbs, way north of where I would like it to be. In the future I plan for it to run around 8lbs. Below is a list of all the gear I carried with comments. This format is taken from Andrew Skurka, you can download your own copy here. 

 
 

Guide

I recently completed a "Quick & Dirty Guide to Thruhiking the TRT". If you are interested in a long section or thruhike you can check out the guide here.

Photos

Check out photos of the trail over at the "Quick & Dirty Guide to Thruhiking the TRT" page.