The Western States Trail

June 12th-15th, 2015

While I was at my moms house at the freedom of having Internet and I ordered some maps to start planning and I also ordered some gear to replace some stuff that was starting to fall apart. I figured that I would have some time before my maps came to my moms house so I decided to do another hike that I've always wanted to check out called the Western states trail. This really isn't a backpacking trail but more of an endurance trail for runners and horseback riders. Every summer they have 100 mile race that goes from Squaw Valley in Tahoe California to Auburn California.

I've hiked a good portion of the trail from Foresthill to Auburn but I've never hiked much from Forestill to Tahoe. My plan was to start hiking from Foresthill go up to Tahoe from there. After I got all my maps ordered and everything for the Western states trail and then started planning.  In the meantime I did a couple things around my moms house try to help out with the yard. By the time the day was over and I was getting ready for some new sights.
After a couple of days I was almost ready to start my hike on the Western States Trail. I still had to do more research. My theory was that the Western States trail would be a good training session for the Continental Divide Trail because a lot of trail wasn't well marked it would be harder to navigate than the PCT.  Also I was going to be climbing from 3000 feet to 8000 feet.

I wasn't ready until about 6:30 PM and then went to Foresthill to start my hike. It was really hot that day and within a couple of hours I made it to a small mining town called Michigan Bluff. From there I kept on hiking and made it to called Eldorado Creek by nightfall. This is a nice area and I didn't know it at first but I did hike here when I was really young and I also was the only one down there. I didn't really expect to see too many people on this trail and was looking forward to some solitude. With thoughts about the CDT and the trail ahead I drifted off to sleep.