Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Posted by Steve Hanna on July 31st, 2007 filed in Random Tags: camping, hiking, tahoe, transcendentalism

This past weekend Chris, me, Deric and Parisa ventured into the wilderness. After weeks of discussion and planning we (with “we” mostly referring to Chris and Parisa) decided that Lake Tahoe would be our destination with aspirations to hike Mount Tallac.

Chris has been visiting Bay Area for the past few days before all of us go to Defcon. The day before we left for the trip, I stopped at REI and grabbed some additional gear after ordering a lot of my stuff online during the previous week. The day we left for the trip we stopped and the Northface Outlet and picked up some bigger packs, we didn’t want to dismiss the possibility of hiking in an camping just due to the fact that we may be ill-equipped.

We left at 4:00am Saturday morning to head to Tahoe. After a quick stop at an unnamed search engine giant’s mini-kitchen, we continued on our trip. We arrived at around 9:00am and obtained a camping permit. The ranger told us that it would take us about three hours to hike to the summit with full packs, however, a nearby ranger overheard this and expressed her incredulity. She stressed that it took her longer than that with full gear and emphasized that it may take a bit longer. She was very correct.

Mount Tallac’s Summit is at 9,375 feet and the Desolation Wilderness trail leading to the mountain starts at about 6,500 feet. This incline takes place over a mere 5 miles. Had we decided to equip our day packs and hike in without all of our gear, the trip would have been much easier. Despite the fact that we’re all in good shape, carrying 30-50lbs packs, uphill, in the heat, is a trying experience for most anyone. In addition to that, I think that everyone felt the elevation change to at least a mild degree. I know that I experienced shortness of breath and occasionally experienced lightheadedness. So the trip that was originally projected to take 3 hours took closer to nearly double that amount of time.

Once we reached the summit, we took a break and indulged ourselves in some trail-mix and fruit. We sat and rested a while and we did our best to absorb the surrounding landscape as much as possible before the impermanence of our situation atop the mountain set in and we returned to our respective situations. Being on that summit and losing myself in a moment of self reflection certainly offered some perspective that I rarely experience. As I’ve rambled on about before in this blog, I spend a great deal of time behind a computer and I derive a lot of happiness from what I create and experience. But, one again I realize that that the same unadulterated sense of self-worth and happiness can be accomplished in a situation of such simplicity.

Don’t let my random foray into self-introspection fool you, I also decided to sneak in a quick nap on the summit due to complete exhaustion. While I dozed, I encountered an intrepid little chipmunk who was determined to get as close to me as possible. Parisa snapped some pictures and everyone later admitted that they would have basically let the chipmunk do whatever it wanted without warning me. Oh well, he was probably at least a friendly as Alvin with likely the same penchant for mischief.

We hiked down the summit and decided to setup camp a few hundred feet down the mountain. Despite being completely physically drained we made our way to the base of the mountain and refilled our water from the lake. It was exceptionally difficult to make it back up despite having left our packs at our camp; we were drained and now carrying jugs of water. About an hour later, with many breaks in between, we returned to camp and feasted on hummus, pita, and peppers.

After some nourishment, we pitched our tents and headed to bed. It was quite possibly the earliest I had been to bed since I was a very small child. I crawled into my sleeping bag at around 7:30pm and slept until about 7:30 am the next day. This night’s sleep was not without interruption. Perhaps it was the thin air, the lumpy ground or the skewed sleep schedule, but I awoke several times during the night and was greeted with the soft glow of a nearly full moon that illuminated the mountainside. In complete silence and with the knowledge that the mountain we occupied was uninhibited by other campers and we were completely alone for miles, I fell back into a peaceful sleep.

The following morning we rose, packed our tents, had a modest breakfast and started the hike out of the wilderness. It only took about two and a half hours to make it back to the car. During that quick trip we used Deric’s tripod with my camera to snap a few group photos. After we reached the car, we packed our things and headed to the most glorious restaurant ever and indulged in pure ambrosia (yes, I am being facetious). After the long, traffic laden, trip home we all got cleaned up and gorged ourselves on pizza, beer, avocado rolls and nachos. Take that caloric deficit!

It probably doesn’t need to be restated but the trip was most excellent and I think everyone had a really awesome time. Check out my pictures page for the full rage of photos that I took and don’t forget to check out Parisa’s Blog as well; she’ll eventually update.