July 2:Mosquitos, Bears, and a Ski Resort

We woke up at our high point, and the mosquitos are already prevalent. We talk a lot about mosquitos, but when you live outdoors, it dictates a lot of what you do: where you take breaks, where you camp, what you wear, etc. Our route took us down for 6 miles through heavily forested areas, culminating at a stream that was swarming with the buggers. Normally we would take a break around then, but because of the mosquitos, we pressed on. Before we knew it we were on top of Barker Pass, with a light breeze, and very few bugs. When we looked at how far we'd come, we were surprised to find we'd gone 10 miles already, and it wasn't even 10am! We were also surprised to hear that JZ, whom we had camped with the night before, had seen 5 bears within 4 miles of our campsite! He had left 45 min to an hour before us, and we had seen nothing. The first three were a mother and 2 cubs. When they first saw JZ, the cubs shot up a tree, and the mother took off. A bit later, he came across a ma!
le and female. The female eventually went uphill, but the male hung around, and JZ got some great pictures of both. He was eventually able to walk by the male after he left the trail. We have heard that around here people are able to hunt bears so they have a natural fear of humans (vs the ones in the National Parks who see humans and know they can get food from them). It was just a crazy story to hear since we were just a few miles behind him and had no clue (thank goodness!).

Eventually our trail split from the Tahoe Rim Trail (after finally giving us some excellent views of the lake), and we spent the next few hours walking out on a wonderful, yet windy ridge. It was super beautiful and there were tons of wildflowers everywhere. We have so many pictures of wildflowers we could almost publish our own Sierra Wildflower guide!

Our goal was to head to Squaw Creek, but we stopped 0.4 miles short because we found a great breezy saddle that gave us relief from the mosquitos. It ended up that we, along with quite a big group of hikers, were camping in the middle of the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, and we fell asleep underneath one ski lift, with another in view.

Total Miles:1143.0
Miles Today:26.5
Camp 66:Squaw Valley Ski Resort

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