PCT Section Hike 2022 – Day 7 – Wandering the Earth

Goal for the day: Get to Tilden Lake

I was feeling pretty good that I was only a day behind schedule this particular morning, even if I felt like I was 2 days behind based on my exhaustion level. As I packed up my gear, I smelt smoke. There were a number of people who had camped in the area, so I assumed that someone made a campfire.

Then I started on a thousand foot climb. Along the way, I continued to smell smoke. As I reached the high point of the climb, I cloud see a thick band of haze to the south about where Hetch Hetchy would be. That worried me, but at least it wasn’t towards the north where I was headed.

Instead of going over to Wilma lake and approaching the lake from the east, I decided to take the trail along Tilden Canyon Creek to save on some mileage and extra climbing. The creek was dry, but there were some ponds along the way.

I emerged into a meadow that formed one of the drainage points of the lake in the spring and got my first sight of the lake.

Very beautiful lake surrounded with peaks of various heights.

After enjoying the view from the south shore, I thought about where to camp. Originally, I was thinking of a spot on the west shore that had a little hill that may give a good view. But It looks like the east shore may provide some better choices.

Heading over along the grass covered shoreline, I had to climb up along some rocks to survey the area for a good spot. I found a nice little patch of level dirt with some trees to provide a little shade and setup my camp. I was well back from the shoreline, but still had a great view and a quick walk to the shore to get water and…

My first swim of the trip. Smedberg Lake and the lake near Seavey Pass would have been nice places for a swim, but both days were overcast when I reached the lakes and felt too chilly to take a swim.

This day was pretty warm and the east shore was basked in the midday Sun. I started by soaking my sore feet in the water, finding it lukewarm. Encouraged, I stepped into the lake and slowly moved deeper and deeper. A bit cold at first, but I grew accustomed to it quickly. Finally I took the plunge and ducked my head under the water.

Ahhhhhhhh…

Very refreshing and I spent many minutes swimming around and letting my body relax and get rejuvenated.

After that, I took a little time to send out a message using my Inreach satellite communicator to check on fire activity. It turned out that the smoke was coming from a fire in the southwestern corner of Yosemite near Wawona. That at least meant I wasn’t hiking into a fire. Hopefully, the smoke wouldn’t reach further up the Sierras.

Then the main feature began: Sunset!

The eastern shore turned out to be ideal for seeing the sunset.