Day 75: Grateful Dad & SLT

Date: Sun 7/1

PCT Start Mile: 1081.9

PCT End Mile: 1090.0

PCT Mileage for Day: 8.1

Total PCT Mileage: 1090.0

The Highlights: a rocky short morning hike, Grateful Dad, and Paparazzi

This morning we were back to our early wake up, hiking out at 6am with Squishy. Back to normal 🙂 No movement from the weekend hiker tents at Showers Lake.

The moon over Showers Lake in the morning.

After hiking longer miles yesterday, our hike this morning was only a short 8.1 miles. Starting at Showers Lake, the trail undulated uphill and downhill a bit before beginning a long, steep, rocky descent toward Echo Lake.

Rocky descent to the Echo Summit Trailhead.

Before 9am, we had reached the Echo Summit Trailhead, where we would part from Squishy (again) as she continued on for a few days toward Truckee/Donner Pass and we hitched into South Lake Tahoe for a few days.

Except… we never even had to hitch. Not long after we arrived to the trailhead along Highway 50, Dingo and another hiker named Ladies Phirst (yes, a play on Phish), hiked up. “You guys heading into town?”, Ladies Phirst asked. After responding that we were, he asked, “Need a ride?” Yes, awesome.

He had already arranged for a ride from a guy that he had been trying to meet up with for a couple weeks. This guy was Grateful Dad. And he was awesome.

Almost on cue, Grateful Dad pulled into the parking lot, his van an amazing mess of color and Grateful Dead tribute.

Grateful Dad was from Connecticut and was traveling up the PCT in his van, following his daughter as she hiked the trail. Ladies Phirst was from the same town in Connecticut and, while they’d heard of each other, this was the first time they had been able to link up.

While his daughter was a bit further south on the trail taking some rest days, Grateful Dad had continued northward and was hanging around the South Lake Tahoe area for a few days, helping out other hikers and giving rides to/from the trailhead, sleeping in his van in casino parking lots by night.

Let’s talk about his van some more… it was instantly clear that we had met a trail icon for this year, his van completely covered in the signatures of all the hikers he had met or given hitches to, as well as other fun quips and artwork.

At the beginning of his journey it had been just a plain white van – “Vanna White” – but now was completely covered in an awesome explosion of color. He busted out the paints so we could add our names to the roving mural.

Yes, I signed my name next to A-a-ron.

As we chatted and painted, more hikers showed up, also adding their names to the van. After awhile, he piled as many of us as possible into the van, which was largely taken up by a bed since we was living out of it, and 8 of us were on our way into South Lake Tahoe.

The ride into town was about 20-25 minutes and with 8 hikers and one Grateful Dad – none of whom had showered in 4-7 days – all crammed into a largely windowless and airless van, there was a definite funk about the ride, but we were all happy we didn’t have our thumbs up along Highway 50.

In South Lake Tahoe, Grateful Dad dropped us all in a fairly centrally located shopping center parking lot, and offered his number to all of us in case we needed help getting errands done while we were in town or rides back to the trail at some point. Such an awesome guy. We got our pic with him before he headed out.

Hungry, our first order of business was food. We went across the street and into the ski village area to Base Camp Pizza, which offered one of the best deals along the PCT to hikers: a free personal gourmet pizza, pasta, or salad when we showed our permit.

Still dirty and carrying our packs, they didn’t even ask to see our permits, and even offered up the deal before we could ask about it. Soon we were eating delicious pizzas.

Apparently the owner is a huge fan of PCT hikers. He’s also making a wall in his restaurant with a collage of hiker photos and our waiter took our photo before we left. Really great place, awesome food, super friendly staff. We may return while we are here.

During lunch we figured out some logistics for northern California, where we decided to send one box forward. There are a few stops that have more limited options for resupply, so better to send a box.

At the grocery across the street, we took care of resupply for the one box we wanted to send forward and then walked down the street to the 7-11, where we would be met by Paparazzi.

Paparazzi is another hiker on the trail. Days earlier he had posted on FB that his friend had opened up his house in South Lake Tahoe to him and a few other hikers, so we had contacted him a few days prior to see if he had room for us for Sunday night (tonight), since we’d be getting into SLT a little earlier than planned, our hotel reservation starting on Monday. He was super friendly and welcomed us to join, and was even picking us up at the 7-11.

And so, we met Paparazzi, Verde, Cashew, and Clean Turkey, all the hikers currently at the house. Apparently the night prior there had been 13 hikers there, but most had cleared out this morning.

Other than showers and laundry, we spent most of the remainder of the day just relaxing, chatting with the other hikers, and watching movies on the seemingly endless number of channels on the TV at the house. Because when hikers are in town, other than getting stuff done, we all try to be fairly lazy.

Eventually, we did leave the house to walk down the street a couple blocks to a burger and shake joint, but were soon back on the couches watching movies with everyone.

Eventually we heard the doorbell ring and Paparazzi went to answer it, the two additional hikers he had been expecting for the evening. We heard them doing introductions downstairs… it was Pilgrim!

We had last seen Pilgrim in Kennedy Meadows (south) before entering the Sierras. Shawn had played a rousing game of chess with him before we left, while Pilgrim waited several days for a friend to catch up. This friend was Bang, and was with him now. As I’ve mentioned before, trail reunions are always fun and Pilgrim has been a favorite of ours along the trail. Always quick with a good one-liner, he’s fun to be around.

Sometime before 10, we hit the hay. Happy to be showered and in a bed, and happy for the hospitality and generosity of not only trail angels – like Grateful Dad – but also our own fellow hikers, especially those willing to help out and take in other hikers who they haven’t even met before. And fun trail reunions. Another great day in the books.