Desolation Wilderness

Friday July 10th, 7:15pm

California's Desolation Wilderness is like a whole other world. After walking through the evergreen forest from Tahoe to Echo Lake, you follow the lake's rocky Eastern shore passing summer vacation cottages tucked between the trees. Leaving the shore at the North end of the lake you make a gentle climb on a giant pile of small rocks to the start of the Desolation Wilderness.

These mountains are picture perfect rocky slopes with patches of cold wet snow that litter the Northen faces. Between the mountains are sparse bunches of pine and spruce trees mixed with chilling snowmelt-fed lakes and ponds. The trails are gently graded and heavily used by day and weekend hikers. In fact, for being named Desolation this wilderness area is very crowded. We must have passed by around 20 hikers and campers, 2 dogs and a trail crew of 6 Student Conservation Association (SCA) workers.

Our pictures cannot do it justice, but next time we are in town at a computer I will add pictures to this post.

We have been able to relish in the beauty of this environment hiking only about 11 miles today, at a slow pace. We didn't get out of the tent until 8:30, had several breaks at edges of lakes and the top of a pass and were setting up the tent again by 4:00. It is windy here but we don't mind because the winds drive away the mosquitos. Tomorrow should be another gentle day as we are slowing down to let another hiker (Monologue) catch up probably tomorrow night.