Beacon leaves early, shooting for 20 miles, and Bernadette and I enjoy a later breakfast, having both decided to go to that 10 mile spot today. She heads out at 8; I stay behind to do a final sweep and lock up (you have to barricade the front door, climb up the loft, then out the second story window and down the outside ladder; quite the production), and leave about 8:30. I'm expecting to get to camp by 2pm at the latest, so I take the hike fairly leisurely.
About 4 miles in I come to an unpacked jeep road. I start to cross, and hear motors in the distance, and without even thinking about it I run to the other side and up into the woods, like a nervous animal. Sometimes you just do what your gut says and don't ask why. I never did see if a car came by, or not.
The elevation gains are not bad today, so even going slowly I'm making good time. Around the 7 mile mark, near the trailhead to Barker Pass, I come up to another larger, but still unpaved, road. A car drives past and pulls off to the side, just as I climb up to the lip of the road. An older woman opens her door and nods at me. I stop to say hello, and she has some questions about the route I just did, telling me her and her husband are coming out in a few days for a 2 week hike, and she's just caching food and water along the way. She asks a bit about my hike, and I turn on my phone to give her mile markers for different water sources, and realize that my phone has service! I tell her I should check in w my mom, but no call is going through. She offers to let me use her phone, but still nothing. She tells me that when she heads back down into the service area she'll call my mom and tell her I'm alright. Thank you, kind lady! (I never even got her name).
Heading up to Barker pass I run into another older couple as I walk into a clearing to get a picture of Lake Tahoe. They talk my ear off (in a nice way), and tell me they're pretty sure they met Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild) back in the 90s, at this very spot, when she was doing her hike. Not sure how likely it is, but it would be a fun coincidence!
Chatting with these people, while enjoyable, has set me back an hour, but I'm still on track to make it there by 2. I come down Barker Pass, and low and behold: snow! It's fairly manageable and melting quickly, so it doesn't slow me down too much. Will today be the last of the snow?! My gut says no, but at least it's far less than was there a week ago! I sail down the rest of the trail, looking forward to catching up w Bernadette and hearing how her day was. I get to the campsite, and it's empty.
There is no way I could have passed her, unless she took an extended break off trail. Then I worry that she didn't realize this was the campsite (not having gps) and kept going further. I walk a bit further down the trail and call her name. I'm surprised at how incredibly disappointed I am to not have her here. I quickly decide whether I want to do 8 more miles to the next water and campsite. It's only 2pm, and it seems weird to end the day this early, by myself, but I decide to do it anyway. It's like taking a half zero, and I hope my feet and shoulders will pay me back later. I decide it's laundry, bath, and journal day. I'm done with everything by 4...now what?! Relax, enjoy the sun, eat, go to bed, and do it all again tomorrow.
Now that we're out of the snow, it seems the big obstacles are fallen trees that completely block the trail. Most times you just awkwardly step over them, but sometimes you have to go off trail, adding another way to slow you down.
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