“I found my Freel, on top of that hill!”

Another early morning wakeup call on Thursday, June 19^th. Get up, eat, and head to the Freel Peak Trailhead which was only about 25 minutes away from Blue Lakes. Most of the 25 minutes was spent on a 3.5-mile dirt road which was easy to navigate. I wouldn’t recommend a low-profile vehicle for this drive though. My Santa Cruz handled it with no issues. I arrived at the trailhead just before 6am. There were no other cars or hikers around. Just as I was stepping off for my hike another vehicle drove up.

The first mile up the trail was a Tahoe Rim Trail access trail or blue blaze. The first mile was over before I knew it and I was at the Tahoe Rim Trail and Armstrong Pass Trail intersection. This was right at 1.1 miles and about 462 feet in elevation gain. Miles 2 and 3 combined had an additional 545 feet in elevation gain. Most of that comes in mile 3. By mile 4.19 I gained another 577 feet in elevation gain. From here I took the Freel Peak Trail up the final 1.1 miles and 1,155 feet in elevation gain. A challenging final mile but compared to Boundary Peak that I did two days ago, this was a cake walk.

I only saw about seven Tahoe Rim Trail through hikers on my way up. Once at the summit, another hiker, who was doing the loop trail which included Jobs Sister and Jobs Peaks as well as being an 18+ mile day. He pushed on and I headed down after about 30 minutes at the summit. I saw one other hiker coming up just as I headed down. After my initial descent from Freel Peak and once I got back on the Tahoe Rim Trail there must have been at least a dozen more Thru-hikers, several day hikers, and about a half-dozen or so bikers.

Freel Peak was listed as a 9.6 mile (out and back) that had 2600 feet in elevation gain. I clocked this at 10.6 miles and 2909 feet in elevation gain. This was my first peak of the Tahoe Six-Pack of Peaks Challenge.