Breakfast at Holiday Inn Express is always good but today's was exceptional. We ate lots.

It took us three rides to get back to Echo Lake so we got a late start.
Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness was second in the lake series. We stopped for lunch on the rocks.

Dicks Pass & Lake was the start of mosquito clouds so we kept on hiking to get out of them. It didn't work so we camped at the trail junction in mosquitoes. We hopped in the tent, zipped the door, and squashed the invaders.

The hordes were waiting for our blood outside our tent when we got up. We packed up inside, stepping out completely covered head to foot, to hike quickly.

We left Desolation Wilderness and the Tahoe Rim Trail this afternoon. Both were scenic and very picturesque. The PCT then went up on the crest for miles of unlimited views. We filtered dinner and breakfast water before we climbed to the waterless ridges, planning to camp on Ward mountain. There were no flat places and the wind was too strong so we had to hike on. Distances were deceiving; we could see the entire crest but did not seem to progress as we hiked on and on. We looked down into both Alpine Meadow and Squaw Ski Areas. The Squaw Tramway was going down, looking like a tiny car in the distance.

We found a flat campsite near Patrick and Clara when we finally finished the crest walk and switchbacked down to the valley.

Early this morning we joined the American Discovery Trail, hiking north where we hiked south (west). All the trail junction posts are correctly marked for the PCT and ADT.

We saw the tramway top at Squaw, enjoyed close views of Granite Chief and marveled at the contrast to volcanic Tinkers Knob. The day was warm enough that the forest walks felt refreshing and the crest walks exciting.

We crossed Roller Pass where settlers constructed rollers and used 24 yoke of oxen to pull wagons up and over the very steep ridge. Amazing!

We stopped short at Hwy 40 to go to Pooh Corner where Ken could charge his camera battery. Trail Angel Pooh cooked a sit down dinner for 12 (with cloth napkins) and the more-than-ample spread stretched to 15 hungry hikers! Ken was chauffeur bringing more hikers in from trailheads and I was laundress for dirty hikers who showered and wore "house clothes".

We had our choice of sleeping on the Donner Lake dock or the deck above, opting for the deck above. The moon is almost full and I-80 was humming from across Donner Lake.

To celebrate the Fourth we took a photo of red, white and blue flowers growing in a meadow.

It was hard to leave Pooh Corner with lots of hikers taking a zero so they could watch the local parade and the fireworks on the lake. Then we left with an extra day's food (weight to carry) and then took the wrong trail, losing and hour of hiking time. Our choice was to give up and go back to Pooh Corner or hike fast for endorphins. Hard choice but we kept going, eating lunch five miles along at Peter Grubb Hut.

We saw plenty of hikers until just past Peter Grubb Hut, then nobody. We were on ridgetops many times with good mountain and lake views.

We crossed lots of meadows and small creeks (mosquitoes). When we walked a bridge over the largest it was just very deep pools filled with water that didn't seem to flow.

We had a nice campsite right by a road busy with ATV traffic...risky on a holiday night. But at dark all the traffic ceased. We slept soundly without any problem.

We slept with the tent door screen zipped shut, our sleeping bags unzipped so we would be cool and unbitten by mosquitoes.

We hiked at 6 am. By 7 am it was 77 degrees and the sun was hot on our bare arms and legs. When the trail ducked into forest we were cooler without views. When it climbed to the crest to wind around volcanic plugs we were entertained but hot. The trade-offs made a good hiking day.

At Jackson Meadow Reservoir (provided water for hydraulic gold mining operations in the 1800's) we ran into a tree harvesting crew. The trail is gone amidst huge tracks or under slash or hidden by a cloud of dust. We waited for the huge machines to drag trees past us then dashed in deep dust down what we hoped was the trail.

Ken's watch thermometer hit triple digits after lunch. I think the summer is going to be hot. I hope my mitochondria adjust like the wilderness medicine expert taught.

I thought the trail was torturing us when I ran out of water as we followed Milton Creek down the canyon, never catching it because it descended faster than the trail. Finally we got there, drank cold water, rinsed off and met a Sierra Club group section hiking the PCT. One woman was from Pleasanton!

We are down in a mixed forest of oak, manzanita, cedar and pines at 4170', the lowest we've been since I-10.

Sierra City is very hiker friendly. The store let us in even though the closed sign was out. We ate dinner at the hotel across the street and got a room on the second floor so we didn't have to walk far.