Tahoe, hikes, grease, the road, on to Yosemite…

So if you read the title as a sentence – tahoe hikes grease the road on to Yosemite – it pretty much sums up my last week…

The first two days in Tahoe consisted of cleaning my van out from Burning Man dust, laundry (yes, dust), working 4 hours a day (which I have to say is sweet), and trying to squeeze in hikes around Lake Tahoe – a large area. I lost Tuesday and Wed. to cleaning and work, but did manage to get in a nice 6 mile hike on the Tahoe Rim Trail right in Tahoe City on Wed. morning, and a nice bike ride Wed. night on the bike trail in Tahoe City.

Thursday I had to find veg. oil, since I had about 5 gallons in my tank, and maybe 5 extra in storage waiting to be filtered. I spent two mornings working out of the Dam Café in Tahoe City, and one of the guys working there suggested McDonalds as a source for oil. I thought it would be pointless, but gave it a shot anyway and drove away with 25 gallons of pretty good fuel.
The filtration process took about 3 hours – first filter from their tank into a 5 gallon pail using a 5 micron filter, then from the pail into a 5 gallon jug using a 5 to 1 micron filter, then into my tank using another 5 to 1 micron filter. Messy to say the least, but I had a blast doing it – knowing all along that I’m getting about $125 worth of fuel for free, and NOT giving that $125 to the blood sucking oil giants. I mean, I still have to use Diesel to start up and shut down, but I’m rolling on mostly veg, and it feels great, apart from greasy. Most people gave me funny looks, but a select few knew what I was doing and nodded with approval. Nice.

Bessie is doing great. She sprung a small leak in one of the tire valve stems on Thursday (right when I started getting oil at McD’s!) but I caulked the leak with some silicon and brought her to a Chevron station down the street on Friday. A new stem, an oil change, and a new air filter (had to, due to the dust from Burning Man!) and she was good to go again!
I rolled out of Tahoe City on Friday and on down to South Tahoe for the night. On my way, I caught a quick 4 mile hike at the Rubicon Trail and Lighthouse Trail in DL Bliss National Park, and then a 2 mile hike down to “Vikingsholm” in Emerald Bay park. “Vikingsholm” is this beautiful, but sort of ridiculous summer home that some old rich lady had built in the early 1900’s – I don’t remember the story, but you can just imagine some old hag with lots of money and nothing more to do than build an EXACT replica of a Swedish style chalet, complete with antique furniture pieces from art auctions and museums, and of course when she couldn’t buy the pieces she had them made to exact detail – including scratches! Must be nice to have money falling out of your ass…

Onward to route 50 and beyond the Tahoe region! I decided to stop into a ranger station and ask about the wilderness areas off route 89 and was promptly directed to the Desolation Wilderness area just south of South Tahoe. For $5 I bought an overnight back country permit and headed out to Aloha Lake. The hike into Aloha affords some of the most amazing views of the Desolation Wilderness lakes region. The trailhead starts at lower Echo Lake, passes upper Echo Lake, and then spurs off to Triangle Lake, Lake of the Woods, Lake Lucille, and Tamarack Lake to name a few.

I ended up at Aloha Lake around 4pm (I think) and decided to swim and take a power nap. The water at the lakes here is crystal and cold, and man did it look and feel great! After my brief slumber, I figured I’d try to hike around the lake, find a spot to camp, and call it a night. Little did I know that Aloha lake consists of a lot of granite rock out croppings, which 1) make the lake look small and 2) make a hike around it incredibly tedious because at almost every turn of the lake there’s another granite finger sticking out which has to be navigated. My pictures don’t show this well, but I’ll just end by saying the lake hike took about 4 more hours! If I had known, I would of pitched camp first and not brought my pack long. It was a great bit of exercise and I was exhausted and joyous when I found my camp – a nice little nook near a small lily pad laden pond just off of the lake.
Dinner consisted of fat free Healthy Valley veggie soup and a packet of Pepper Salmon – Bumble Bee brand. Dinner was fabulous, and so was sleep! I hiked out this morning at 7am, made it back to Bessie by 10:30am, took a quick dip in lower Echo Lake, and hit the road for Yosemite. The road was pretty desolate, hence the Desolation Wilderness – they’re not joking folks, there’s NOTHING out here – but I kept myself going with my iPod and frequent stops to take pictures of the mountains and valleys. I ended up in a town called Bridgeport around 3pm, made some calls to touch base with the fam, and as fate would have it my buddy Joe calls me and tells me of a hot spring just a mile away! A quick 5 minute ride and I’m at one of the nicest hot springs I’ve ever been to, talking with some older naked hippie guy who frequents hot springs all over the west. (No pics of the naked guy, ladies… sorry!)
I stayed and chatted for about an hour and got directions to another sweet hot springs – “The Tub” outside of Lee Vining, CA, where I write this blog post forthwith. I met two guys at “The Tub” – burnt out hippie hot spring camper bums who seem to traipse around this area and stay at various BLM areas, camp grounds, and hot springs. Funny to listen to ‘em. Scary to think that might be me someday… kidding, just kidding. I’m going home at some point, really. Seriously……… On to Yosemite!!
Well, if you made it this far. Damn, you have focus! Enjoy the latest round of pics, and I’ll blog again soon. I swear I’m going to blog about the making of Bessie soon. It’s just gonna be SO MUCH work – just as she was…
On that note, a quick thanks to everyone who helped: Aaron – man, I couldn’t have done this without you!, Jason and the guys at Full Circle Automotive, Warren at Hydrogen Full Tech., my wonderful sister Terry for the stained glass windows and packing help, Lyn for too many things to list (the muffins stick out the most!), Sky for being the best landlord and all around jack of all tradesman, William, Joe, Patrick and everyone who helped paint the murals, Paul – the paint job looks rad man!, Dad for the help with the spray painting and lights, Jon for the 85 gallons of veg to get me on my way, Mom for the last minute details on the interior, Quentin Clark out in Bath, NY for the incredible help getting Bessie going after she broke down 8 hours from home, Toby Nichols in Kansas for the 100 gallons of fuel half way through my trip, and everyone else that had any hand in helping me, coaching me, coaxing me, and allowing me to realize this dream.
Until next time… much love, Sean.

Quick Burning Man memory: Being ‘brainwashed’ at the CLEU camp. A beautiful and hokey experience.