Start: 252.2
Stop: 259.4
Today’s miles: 7.2
Total PCT miles: 447.2
I woke up to my tent and my quilt soaked from the lake condensation. One day I’ll learn that the prettiest views don’t always equal the best conditions for my gear. Crap.
I was on trail just after 6:30 and slow as ever. The trail climbed up and away from the lake and my feet were still aching from the last 2 almost 20 mile days. How in the world am I supposed to pick up the pace when my feet are struggling like this? At least nothing else hurts, ya know? It’s just tender feet, for now.
When I got service, I was up on a ridge and the views were gorgeous. I called my friend Kelly and caught up with her for a bit, then tried to FaceTime her so she could see the beauty.. but of course that was right when my service dropped out. Apparently, I was on the Kendall Katwalk.. and my God was it incredible! Views for days while walking along this narrow path of trail, sheer drop offs on either side, but a rock “ledge” kind of holding you in place.. it almost made me think of being on top of a castle wall or something.
On the way down the other side, I quickly realized that I was indeed not the only person that found that catwalk stunning, as I started to get bombarded by day hikers and trail runners coming up the way I was going down. I looked at my watch after I counted some 50 something people and saw that it was a Saturday. Of course everyone was out today in this beautiful weather.
I passed though so many more people and and their cute dogs, each time interrupting my speed to side step or make room for them to pass.. or to jump when a trail runner would appear out of thin air and zip past me fast enough to give me whiplash. I even took a hard fall to my knees (skinned them a little), but thank heavens it happened at the absolute perfect time, NO ONE SAW IT HAPPEN! I still don’t know how I lucked out there, but not a single soul was around for my trip, or my quick pop up to brush myself off.. milliseconds later, 3 women come by as I take my first step post fall and one complimented my shirt. Cool cool. Ignore the bloody knees please.
Silky past me around 9:15, which was nuts because I could have sworn she was ahead of us! I’m still confused on how that one played out.. but she had told me she’s didn’t feel all that great the day we hiked out of Stevens Pass, so she just had a few easier days before pounding out a big one.
When I got to the bottom of the trail at the parking lot for all these day hikers, I followed Marquis’ directions and headed into town. I was going to go to the cafe he and Silky were at, until he said it was expensive.. so I decided to go to the pancake house instead. Margot came not long after and so did Silky, Marquis and a guy we kept seeing the last few days, Stache. FakeSnake was at the entrance of the Inn attached to the pancake house, so he got breakfast with us, too.
There were six of us, loud smelly hikers, absolutely thrilled to crush some breakfast food. I got hash browns, biscuits and gravy, two eggs over medium and piled them all together.. then had a side of bacon. Perfection. Absolute perfection. We were there for almost 2 hours, all said and done.
Afterwards, Margot, Marquis, and I hitched to the next town over to get our resupply from a legitimate grocery store. The hitch took less than 10 minutes to get, and the couple drove us on a major highway over 20 minutes away.. and let us out right at the grocery store front door! I’m still so very blown away by the kindness of strangers!
We resupplied and Marquis found a motel that offered a hiker rate. We walked less than a mile to it, checked in to a huge room, as in tons of floor space, with two double beds. We took turns showering and then we had to hand wash our laundry in the sink and hang it up to dry-I make a terrible washing machine, for the record. Once our chores were done and we quit laying all of our stuff out to organize and had charging blocks connected.. we walked to a ski shop to look for things we needed.
Margot needs a new spork-she’s lost it twice now, the second time for good, and we all wanted to buy that Picardin lotion. Sadly, no dice. The guy working there told us to go to the Ace Hardware up the road, because theyd probably have all of that. We walked that way, to the largest Ace Hardware I’ve ever seen, and searched for our stuff. They had bug spray, but not the one we wanted. They had sporks and spoons and forks-but short cheaply made ones that were way overpriced. We left empty handed.
We hit the pizza food truck on the way back and got ourselves some dinner to carry to the room. We picked up some drinks from the gas station, and had a picnic dinner on our beds while watching Law and Order: SVU. Ah. Does it actually get better than this? I think not.
My feet are still aching. Margot hasn’t been sleeping very well, causing her to be dizzy when she’s hiking, so we agreed to give her the bed to herself tonight, with Marquis and I sharing, and then the next hotel we stay at, I’ll get my own room. I’ve been sleeping pretty good lately, and know how miserable it is when you go multiple days with bad sleep, so I’m perfectly happy with this arrangement.
Tomorrow, we have to hitch back to trail and then see how far we get. I’m not sure if we’re waking up early to get in a whole day or not, and I really don’t mind either way.. although sleeping in is always my favorite. We’ll see! Goodnight!