Day 5: 14 miles total to Aloha Lake

We hiked for 8 miles through beautiful alpine meadows overlooking little lakes and, of course, Lake Tahoe is in the distance. There is smoke from a fire in the Siskiyou's making it quite hazy over the Tahoe valley.  A lot of today's terrain was through rocky areas, as we hiked down to where the trail angels met us for lunch at Echo Summit (they provided chicken Caesar salad, pasta salad and watermelon - and red vines!).  We were then shuttled around Echo Lake to the trailhead because the water taxi that they usually use was not in operation in September. Anyway, our group had to split up because we are heading into Desolation Wilderness and there is a group number limit with each permit, which we exceed. Our group headed to Aloha Lake and the other group went to Lake of the Woods. The hike up to Aloha was quite difficult. We started that section at 2:00 and it was hot, around 85 degrees. Again, much of the terrain was all rocky which can be challenging to walk on and also very few trees on much of this section, it seemed almost desert-like with lots of shrubs and other desert looking plants.  However, the journey was worth the reward of the destination. Aloha Lake is so beautiful and unique in that  it has tons of rocks around and in the lake. It's what I picture the moon to look like if it had lakes. It seemed like it is made up of many water-filled craters. 

We soaked our feet in the water and filtered some drinking water, did laundry, etc. We arrived here kind of late in the day, 5:00, which doesn't leave a lot of time to really enjoy the lake as there is so much to do before it gets dark at 7:30 (chores and dinner).

Overall I am having a fantastic time enjoying being in nature, being in good company, and living in the moment and without so many distractions of the "real world". 

Aloha~