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Today was definitely a lake day.  I must have passed a dozen or more.  Some of the trail was rocky, but much of it pleasurable and there was one legitimate pass to cross early in the day.  I saw perhaps twenty other hikers and met two new thru hikers and ran into another one I have not seen in two weeks.

I woke up alot in the middle of the night probably because the wind was howling all night long.  I left the tarp off the tent so it wouldn’t flap around and wore my hat to bed to keep warm in the strong wind.  I ate my breakfast in bed and managed to get rolling at about 6:15.

The wind continued all morning and much of it I was borderline cold.  I didn’t bother to put on a jacket or gloves and was fine, but in the shade I was a bit cold with the strong wind.  All morning we went from lake to lake and all of the lakes larger than about 100 acres had whitecaps and waves on them.  Not a good day for fishing.

There was a big long climb up a rocky mountain that ended up being quite a high pass that was big and open and would have been a good place to hang for a while had it not been so windy.  Several times walking up to the pass the wind would actually blow me uphill or a few times clear off the trail into the bushes.  The backside was not nearly as windy but did have several snow banks to deal with.

I met two new thru hikers, Just Will and 050, who started in April and are just now realizing they need to pick up the pace to be able to finish.  They are about my age and my pace, but I think they start late and stop early.  We crossed paths about a dozen times throughout the day and chatted a few times.

During second lunch break, I saw a hiker pass by who looked familiar.  He looked like Fancy Pants.  He’s the only hiker I know wearing a rash guard as a shirt.  He had already passed by the time I made the connection.  About an hour later as I was catching up to the other two, he came right up behind me and behold, it was Fancy Pants.  I had not seen him since Kennedy Meadows.  He left the day I arrived and from the registers I could tell he was staying exactly one day ahead of me through the entire Sierras.  He took two days off in Tahoe and that’s how we synced up again.  I’ll probably see him off and on for the next few days until he gets ahead of me again.

I was hoping the easy afternoon terrain would let me get a bit farther than 25 miles today so I can chip away a little mileage off the last day into Sierra city, but the morning rocks took their toll.  I was out of juice at 7 PM so it was time to stop at a nice campsite not far from a stream.  I had been looking forward to Pad Thai for dinner.  It’s hard to find in some grocery stores, but the one in Tahoe finally had it.  I put a Justin’s peanut butter in it and ate a hot and spicy tuna packet while it was sitting.  It was a perfect dinner and will lighten the pack because it’s pretty heavy but worth it.  We’ll see if I can get an early start tomorrow and knock out 27 or 28 miles to inch northward.