Mile 304. After finishing his work in Gardnerville late this afternoon, Tortoise headed up Kingsbury Grade to Lake Tahoe, joined US Highway 50, and headed for where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses the highway. Here he parked and treated himself to a beautiful 2 mile walk towards Echo Lake, then returned. The uphill portion was 2.14 miles, with 546 feet climbed. Average elevation was 7489 feet, and tortoise rating was 2.44. For a map, plenty of pictures, and more, please click below to continue reading ...
Cheerio!
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| Starting point is near the bottom. For not quite a mile the trail parallels US 50, but thankfully is just enough off the highway to be able to enjoy the woods. Then the PCT crosses 50 and heads for the southeastern corner of Echo Lake. |
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| This is directly across from the mileage sign shown at the top of this post. |
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| Another picture of Tortoise's starting point, a ski area parking lot. Closed due to lack of snow. On April 3, at 7300 feet elevation. Clearly there is indeed a drought going on here. |
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| Here you may choose between going straight, which puts you on the Pony Express Trail, or right to go on the joint stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail and the Tahoe Rim Trail |
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| For not quite the first mile of this walk, the trail meanders a short distance from US Highway 50, the busy highway connecting the state capitols of California (Sacramento) and Nevada (Carson City) before it wanders across the country to Maryland as the "Loneliest Road in America". |
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| We've crossed the highway and continue north. "We" includes you, the reader :-) |
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| In another quarter mile the trail crosses the road to Echo Lake, which Tortoise is walking towards. Lou likes the sign on the other side of the road making it clear where to proceed. Much nicer than hunting around for a sometimes faint trail on which to continue. |
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| Fording a currently mostly dry creek bed. |
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| West Coast's version of moss on trees. Tortoise likes it. |
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| That's a big tree that fell down on he trail! Thank goodness for forest rangers that work hard to maintain the trail.. |
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| This was Lou's turnaround point. His goal was to go 2 miles each way, 4 total, and Echo Lake would have been 2.2. The last 0.2 was through the only major snowdrift Lou encountered. To make sure he finished in daylight, Tortoise decided he was satisfied getting close enough to see the lake. |
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| And through these trees is Echo Lake, and to the right a chalet.
If you'd like to more about the Chaletlees (rustic accomodations) and activities there,
here is one of several sites you can visit http://www.echochalet.com/
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| The Echo Lake trailhead and parking lot |
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| See the little pole in the distance as the trail approaches the trees? |
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| Sure you do :-) |
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| Views of that almost dry creek bed from the other side, on the return walk. |
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| Love the manzanita! |
Here are the overall stats so far for 2015:
304.39 miles walked, which is 30.38% of Lou's 2015 goal. On this day in 2014, Tortoise had walked 273.40 year-to-date miles.
89:52:27 hours walked, which is 28.71% of the 2015 goal (which is to walk 1 hour a day on the 313 days other than Sunday in the year)
15,869 total feet climbed, compared with 12,965 feet on this day in 2014.
45,640 calories burned
25.56% of the year has passed
Lou has walked 88 consecutive non-Sundays since his last missed day on December 22, and overall has walked on 378 of the 393 non-Sundays since the beginning of 2014, a 96.18% consistency rating.
The purpose of the percentages is to have a higher percentage of distance and time walked than of the year. This tells Tortoise that he is on track. Yes, this is more numbers than you are likely interested in, all Tortoise can say is he's really good at setting high goals and having them slip away because he doesn't do them every, every day. (If you doubt this, compare Tortoise's 2013 walking record with 2014)
The tortoise is smiling!
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