Tahoe Rim Trail Trekking, Breathing Again

A chainsaw buzzes and grinds through deadwood in the distance. The long hot summer has claimed a few more trees, and while fire season is most likely officially over, it is never quite fully over in the high desert, even amidst the alpine trees crowded around the Lake Tahoe Basin.

I am clearing my lungs. Bay area city smog still creeps out and mingles with dust and pollen in the area around Pleasant Hill. Even when I'm up on the peaks in Briones Regional Park, I can see the brown smear on the sky and know that I am not quite out of the thick of it yet. I think I may have stopped breathing at one point, my chest paralyzed by the rush of everything life was throwing at me. Things felt just too fast for some years, but that is behind me. And this trail gives me a few more steps to build that distance.

At 6500 feet and more than that at times, I know that dust will be about all that I am breathing, and it feels good to work my legs and to fill my chest with this cool wind.

The ground crunches beneath my hiking shoes, and the ever changing weather of the altitude alternates between chilly and warm as my friend Judi and I wind over knolls and down into valleys, pausing to let mountain bikers churn by from time to time.

Around us in the shady wet areas that harbor several recent patches of snow, baby pines have sprung to life. Small groves of these tree nurseries hug different portions of the trail. I let my hands brush against their young needles to say, "hello" and "I am a friend." They are the next generation to replace their forebears; I wonder how deep their roots may go.

My body enjoys this movement and the peace of the quiet only interrupted by the huffing of the mountains, whistling wind between craggy teeth. It's been awhile since my body has truly enjoyed much; too much change to integrate. Even now, I'm integrating the change of too much strength in some muscles and not enough in others in my right leg, which is causing the knee to grind. Physical therapy helps a lot; everything it seems has moved into moments of self-care.

Ground squirrels and chipmunks chatter and chirp at each other. It's the high-season for winter preparations. It's likely that snow will soon fill up the landscape to truly end fire season. They must be ready to survive the winter.

Lake Tahoe peeks at us more and more as we wind higher, but I didn't come to see the lake as much as to breathe. The Lake is as the Lake always is; cold, blue, often busy with boats or the afternoon zephyrs curling its surface. It's not my favorite lake, but I appreciate it's beauty. It'll never quite match the brilliance of Crater Lake in Oregon.

At some point, we stop before turning back for the car. The wind hushes, and I feel the first nibbles of fatigue in my legs. Trees are spaced out with splashes of blue lake and blue sky interspersed. I am sure that I am smiling. Why wouldn't I be?

I am breathing again.