![]() ![]() Despite having covered almost 13 miles, we were able to arrive early enough at Sunset Lake to score the best of the approximately ten unofficial tent pads there. The camping here would be pleasant, but we had our sights set on Sunset Lake about a mile farther north. The Basin Lakes area should have been called “Sierra Nevada Basin” with its glaciated, Sierra-like granite. We started to see a lot more people at Mount Meek Pass and in the basin, which was somewhat of an unpleasant shock to the system after being isolated from contact in the Middle Fork and Phillips Pass area. The descent into Basin Lakes of Alaska Basin was steep and hot on the Sheep Steps. Our prospects did not look good, but I somehow had the good fortune of getting backcountry bookings in the Middle / South Fork Granite Canyon zone (Night 1), Alaska Basin (Night 2), and the North Fork Cascade Canyon zone (Night 3). There were already 12 parties queued in front of me. After a week of obsessively checking the local webcams and air quality index reports and seeing a favorable trend, we decided the trip was a “go.” I left my house in south Denver at 12am and arrived at the Moose Visitor Center backcountry permit office at 6:30am. ![]() ![]() The wildfire smoke that drifted in from California right as our trip was scheduled to start prompted us to forego our backcountry reservations – permits that were secured in the furious online stampede on seven months prior – and delay the trip by one week in hopes that the atmosphere would clear and that we could score walk-up permits at the key locations to support our four-day window. The best part of any backpacking trip is the time spent above the trees, so the experience of hiking so many miles through meadows with commanding vistas was for me confirmation of the TCT’s lofty reputation. ![]()
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