Tahoe Rim Trail Celebrates 20 Years

The view south along the Pacific Crest from Andesite Peak. A MILESTONE IN TRAIL BUILDING TAHOE RIM TRAIL OPENED 20 YEARS AGO

STORY & PHOTOS BY TIM HAUSERMAN

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Tahoe Rim Trail remained closed due to fire danger as of press time for this edition. Visit tahoerimtrail.org for current trail conditions and to plan your future visit.

on Sept. 22, 2001, the completion of the Tahoe Rim Trail loop was celebrated at an event on the trail 4 miles east of Brockway Summit. Completing the TRT was a culmination of 20 years of e ort by Tahoe Rim Trail Association, which formed in 1981, marking its 40th anniversary this year.

Joining local dignitaries and the folks who built the trail at the celebration was an o cial group of thru-hikers who timed the ending of their bizarre

Check conditions before visiting.

• Practice the Leave No Trace principles • Read about Tim’s experience as a Trail Ambassador • Read the timeline of the trail’s development at thetahoeweekly.com

two-week trip around TRT to coincide with the celebration. What made the hike bizarre? A few days after it begin America was attacked on 9-11, but the hikers persevered, walking for days under an eerie planeless sky.

In September of 2001, I was nishing nal edits on the rst edition of my soon-to-be-published guidebook “ e Tahoe Rim Trail: A complete guide for hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians.” e cover shot was taken from the location of the grandopening celebration that I attended. My most powerful memory of the day was being part of a group of six that helped carry a disabled former TRT board president to the event using a litter. I certainly gained an appreciation for the challenges search and rescue personnel face when evacuating injured people from the wilderness.

I’d nished hiking the trail in 1999, when some of TRT was still under construction. I remember an extremely challenging and precarious jaunt across a talus eld atop Rose Knob Peak. It took me and my friend Shannon Raborn close to an hour of nervewracking rock balancing to cross. A year later, after expert trail builders wrestled a path through that talus, it was just an easy 5-minute stroll.

On completion of the trail, I received a certi cate as the 11th member of the Tahoe Rim Trail 150 Mile Club. TRTA didn’t know yet that the trail would eventually become a 165-mile trail. Now there are more than 2,700 members of the TRT 165 Mile Club and the numbers are growing rapidly.

e trail was lightly used at rst. On a day-long hike on one of the more remote sections it was not unusual to have the trail to yourself. Besides building the trail in those early days, the trail association also spent a lot of e ort marketing this wonderful hidden gem around Lake Tahoe.

In 2007, I thru-hiked the trail solo for the rst time. Even though I knew the trail well, thru-hiking is a di erent experience. e trail is a giant circle so every day you get both farther away and closer to where you started. One day’s little blip on the horizon becomes a giant mountain towering above you a few days later.

On that rst thru-hike, I encountered a total of three people who were thru-hiking the trail at the same time as me. While there were parts of the trail that were busy, I almost always camped by myself. On a weekend in the middle of July, I spent a lonely night at Marlette Peak Campground. What a di erence a dozen years makes. Two years ago, I returned to that campground on a midweek night in Sept- ember and found the camp full to the brim. ere were twice as many thru-hikers there as I had encountered on my original 13-day trip.

In other words, Tahoe Rim Trail, like all the other more spectacular trails in America, has been discovered. Seeing a major increase in use over the last ve years, the trail association changed its mission. It no longer focuses on promoting the trail, but instead on working to maintain and protect it. A good bit of the emphasis now is on educating trail users to properly use the trail so that it will stay as beautiful

TOP: Relaxing along the shore of Fontanillis Lake on the Tahoe Rim Trail. LEFT: Tahoe Rim Trail near Rose Knob Peak; The official Tahoe Rim Trail grand-opening celebration shirt.

Rose Knob Peak. … A year later, after expert trail builders wrestled a path through that talus, it was just an easy 5-minute stroll.

as it is now. is summer, the nonpro t started a Taskforce Trailhead program to help with that education process.

When the fourth edition of my guidebook came out last year, it still gave the reader everything he or she will need to know to enjoy the trail, but there is an expanded focus on how to Leave No Trace and be good stewards of the trail.

CELEBRATION POSTPONED UNTIL 2022

“Over the past 20 years, the trail has provided users with the opportunity to experience the incredible natural and recreational resources of the Tahoe Basin; 2021 also marks the Tahoe Rim Trail Association’s 40th anniversary and with the support of our trails community, we look forward to more successful years improving the trail and inspiring stewardship,” said Morgan Steel, the organization’s executive director. | tahoerimtrail.org 