Tahoe Rim Trail Section Hike / Run - Day 7 - Echo Lake to Big Meadow - 17 miles/34,585 steps/5h46

It was a little hard to get the enthusiasm to get up the morning. We managed it though. Had breakfast and got on with our getting ready routine. We drove one car to the end of the trail head and drove to the start down at Echo Lake.

The first 2 miles were up to Echo Summit but it wasnt much up in the air and we never saw a summit. I struggled to get running this early. My legs were pretty tight, especially the muscle behind my left knee, whichever one that is. The other three got a bit ahead of me (Julie ran with us today too!). After a while the path got wider and I ended up in someone's garden. I backtracked a little way and saw the correct trail and tried in vain to catch up the others. It turns out that they had ran through the garden and I was now ahead of them. It took a while before we met up at the next portion of the trailhead but from there we ran on a bit.

I found it very hard to run today but Adam and Natalle seemed to take it all in their stride. Adam was very fast early on and had to wait for us for 25 minutes at one spot about 7 miles in. It was a nice spot though so we had a break there. As we ate we had to pull little prickly seeds off our clothes and sockes.

There was quite a lot of uphill required quite early on. Some of the rocky paths were begining to get covered in ice. Safe enough for us but not for many more weeks I imagine.

On we pushed, this time Adam waited behind as he sometimes does, so he can run fast to catch us up. As we continued we saw very fresh bear scatt. We rehearsed our bear meeting behaviour and carried on, the three of us together with a sprint Adam behind somewhere.

We stopped at the next branch off the main trail and waited for Adam to come bounding along. When he arrived walking we were surpised. He said he felt like he'd hit the wall running a marathon. We had some food and sports gels and Adam had a bit of a sleep. After about 20 minutes of lounging around in the sun we roused ourselves and got on with it. We all felt pretty tired after our 33 mile day yesterday and it made us pretty slow today.

We didn't run much for the rest of the day but the path got easier as we entered the valley and headed for the Meiss ranch. We ate again there and then took a little food break before walking the last 5 miles back.

Throughout the day we saw bear scatt regularly, often looking very fresh. At one stage it seemed to be every 100 yards. It was as if a possie of bears just ahead of us was hiking the rim trail and eating berries all the way! We still haven't seen a bear though!

Tomorrow is our last day but it's a tough 24 miles, so we are already mentally preparing for that and eating a lot!