7/9/18 – Clair Tappaan Lodge

Day 19

Miles: 1,160.76 to 1,153.38

It was such a peaceful night at our camp near Peter Grubb cabin. I dreamed about being at elementary school again plotting adventures with my friends like we used to when we were kids. I was not happy when the alarm woke me at 5:00

We only had 7 miles to hike today, mostly downhill and the scenery was real treat, especially after we left Hwy 80 and started our climb to Donner Pass. Donner Pass is popular with climbers and we saw some of them on the granite slabs towering around us.

From the pass it was a quick hitch to Clair Tappaan Lodge which belongs to the Sierra Club and where we are staying tonight. The rooms are tiny, Dave and I had to unpack one at a time but the rest of the lodge is awesome with large dining room, lounge, library, laundry room, all available to hikers for a very reasonable price of $35.00 per person. Another $35.00 gets you full board, dinner, breakfast, and a lunch to go. It’s really a great deal. And did I say they have a hot tub?

We spend our day by hitching to Truckee, a bigger resort town about 12 miles away. We have a wonderful lunch there, then we head to the post office. We don’t need our resupply box with 4 days worth of food, we have leftovers from the previous stretch, and so we bounce the heavy box to South Lake Tahoe and buy little bit of additional food at Safeway.

Hitchhiking back is not as easy as we were told. After 30 minutes or so we call UBER and for $40.00 find our was to the cabin. Considering it’s 4 of us splitting the cost it’s not a bad deal.

The club serves spaghetti dinner with salad and garlic bread. Garlic bread goes fast. It’s really good. Afterwards we get cookies. Our tummies are full. All our chores are done. We retreat to the lounge to chill for the rest of the evening.