September 13, 2016

Dicks Lake (mile 1107.6) to bushcamp (mile 1129.7)

Miles: 22.1

Our total miles: 2487

We all slept well during the night, warm and cozy in our sleeping bags.

Sometime during the night the earplug in Andy’s left ear fell out (this happens from time to time), and around 4 or 5 in the morning Andy woke up to the sound of rain.

He smiled, turned to his side and drifted off to sleep once more.

We had all planned to wake up early to catch the sunrise over Dicks Lake, but when we woke up around 6:30, it was to the sound of snow. 

And it was cold out! We were all glad we had put up our rain flies last night. 
Since we couldn’t go out to watch the sunrise, Kelly joined us in our tent for coffee, tea and hot chocolate. 

We enjoyed 3 rounds of hot beverages, sharing food and good conversation until 9am. 

It was still cloudy and cold but it had stopped snowing so we decided to pack up and hit the trail. 

We were walking by 10am, wearing most of our layers as we descended about 1000 feet to beautiful Fontanillis Lake.

Here Kelly took the Bayview Trail back to her car. We really enjoyed her company and are grateful she was able to join us. 

The dark clouds remained in the sky most of the day, threatening to produce rain but only spitting and hailing for short periods. 

For the first 6 miles or so we enjoyed cruising along the rolling trail. The short ups and downs and cool weather were a good combo for quick miles.

We were determined to hike 22 miles today to have the option of going into Truckee tomorrow. 

Laurie set a good pace from 12pm til 5pm, even with us making time to stop and chat with SOBOs and other hikers.

Andy kept track of our progress:

12pm- 1pm = 3.1 mph (rolling terrain)

1pm – 2pm = 3.1 mph (rolling terrain)

2pm – 3pm = 2.3 mph (snack break, got water, had hail and light rain)

3pm – 4pm = 3.0 mph

4pm – 5pm = 2.6 mph (mostly climbed, took break at trailhead parking)

5pm – 6pm = ??  got distracted, took side trail for views, sent text messages, caught up with The Grateful Red whom we first met at Lava Spring in Washington.

Even though we got distracted the last hour or so, we still made it to camp around 6:45pm!

We layered up (it was cold and windy along the ridge), set up our tent and with camera in hand went over to the ridge to watch the beautiful sunset. 

The dark clouds turned orange, then pink. 

We love sunsets and enjoy every one of them that we get to see. 

We were getting cold so we returned to our tent. Laurie quickly got in the tent and Andy cooked. 

We were running really low on fuel so Andy squeezed filtered water out of Laurie’s Platypus bladder to avoid having to boil the water for 5 minutes. 

There was just enough fuel in the canister to boil water for dinner, then it died.

Laurie didn’t get to enjoy hot water but she did get to eat bison pasta for dinner! 

After a delicious and satisfying dinner we made a plan for town day tomorrow. 

Now we sleep. It’s cold but we hope to stay warm and cozy in our little home.

Tonight we are grateful for our waterproof tent and sunshine after the rain.