Leg 8 - Barker Pass to Tahoe City

Well, finished it up today. Met Chris at the original Tahoe City trailhead at 8:00, and shuttled back to the Barker pass trailhead by 8:30.



Then we started running. Yes, running - we decided to try to run all of the last leg, and finish in under 3 hours. (We are both doing a trail half marathon in Bend, OR in a couple weekends.) The first mile was pretty uphill, and it was more gently uphill for another 3-4 after that, but it was supposed to be mostly downhill from there. No matter how closely you've read the map, though, there are always surprises on the trail - turned out there was a big climb, then a big drop, then another big climb before the main downhill section. Had some greas scenery in there, though:



And I grabbed this shot of Chris running beneath a big rock formation:



So, eventually we started going downhill. The uphill took quite a bit out of me, though, and I was losing concentration - had a couple of small falls where I put one hand down, then a BIG fall going downhill where I actually rolled off my shoulder onto my back. Dinged my knee pretty good, too, but not enough to affect my running. Took a break, had a GU, and continued. That was right near this cool waterfall...



I ended up walking a little on a couple of surprise uphills we had, but not for more than 10 minutes. Didn't take any more pictures until the end; it was mostly in the woods and we were concentrating on finishing. We did end up finishing right at 3 hours, then walked across the street to where we started 10 weeks ago:



And that's it. I'd like to thank my sponsors - oh, wait, I don't have any. Well, I'd like to thank my wife and kids for letting me be absent on all those valuable weekend days; they were very understanding. I might have a few more updates to this blog, but for the most part, it's over...