Month: July 2023

Start: 268.2

Stop: 285.3

Today’s miles: 17.1

Total PCT miles: 473.1

I had another good night of sleep, even if I didn’t actually fall asleep until after 11pm. I didn’t want to wake up, either.. but I did, finally, at 6:45. And, happily, my tent was dry as a bone. Wahoo!

The other two were already up with tents packed. I packed and was ready to go by the time Margot finished her coffee. It was a beautiful day-albeit somewhat chilly and definitely overcast for the entire day. Most of the time I was walking into a sea of white clouds with no idea what views I was missing.

The trail was kind and soft, even if my feet still ached by the end of the day. It would gently climb up and down, then suddenly have a steep climb I wouldn’t be expecting.. only to go down again just by the time I was about to start complaining about the burn in my quads. Basically, it was perfect.

I finished an audiobook (The Family Remains) and started another (The Rose Code) and was completely entranced all day. I’d walk up to Marquis or Margot and not even realize they were stopped for water. I actually only drank 2 liters today, because I’d get chilly every time I’d drink any. Margot and I carried water to dry camp at a beautiful spot with supposed views of Mount Rainier. We toted extra water 3.5 miles.

When I got there, Marquis was already there and said he thought he wanted to keep going down to the valley, because it’s cold up on the mountain top and he doesn’t like dry camping. We waited a few minutes for Margot to get there and I let her decide before I said either way. My feet did hurt, and I did tote extra water, so I was happy to stay, but I could have also continued on.. the only issue for me about continuing is the one site ahead in a mile would be where another hiker ahead of us was going.. so, that site is gone, and the other 2 within 2.3 miles were along this old abandoned dirt road and not very flat or even or appealing to me. Plus, the idea of any kind of climb in the afternoon sucks.

Margot’s feet were hurting and she said she didn’t think she’d make it another few miles, and that she preferred to stay where we were. I decided to stay with her and Marquis pushed on to find another spot lower in elevation and hopefully near water. I’m a little sad he pushed, but I also understand his reasoning. We’ll hopefully meet back up in the morning.

Margot and I set up our tents and belongings in one hell of a wind burst. The ground is hard so I had to reinforce my tent stakes with big rocks, hoping none come loose. We ate our dinner together, and figured out the plan for tomorrow.

We will only go 15 miles, because in 20 miles there’s a stream and a cabin that have reports already this year of people getting norovirus from. It happened last year too, so we’re thinking it’s probably the cabin and probably the stream by it.. and obviously we want to avoid it at all costs. So, we’ll camp 5 miles before it, pass it during the following day and skip that water source all together. If we had pushed more today, then we’d have even a shorter day tomorrow, because there isn’t a whole lot just after the cabin to camp at.

It is cold here tonight. It’s not even 8 and I’m bundled up and ready for bed. I was considering listening to my audiobook a bit longer, maybe pause at a clean chapter break, while I wait for my phone to finish charging.. but I also feel like I could close my eyes and drift off to sleep right this second. I know I should wait for my phone to charge, to not forget and fall asleep with my battery bank running all night, but I don’t know if I can hold out. So, with that, goodnight y’all.

Start: 259.4

Stop: 268.2

Today’s miles: 8.8

Total PCT miles: 456

Uhhh.. kinda funny story.. I may have almost attacked Marquis last night. At some point I rolled over and faced him, but was mid-dream that I can’t remember now.. and when I saw him, my eyes got wide and I had a brief moment of thinking he wasn’t real, so I grabbed his forearm.. kind of hard-so hard that he startled awake and did like a, “AHH!” So, I did too.. and then I let go, said a weird, “sorry, I forgot where I was,” rolled over and went back to sleep. We laughed real hard about it this morning, and thankfully he said he just fell right back to sleep, too. Good god, I’m losing it, y’all.

We slept in until 8ish. Thankfully Margot wanted to go get coffee at a cafe or something, so instead of packing, we walked to a Mexican restaurant across the street and ordered breakfast burritos and quesadillas with coffee. Y’all. It was fantastic! We devoured it, had several cups of coffee, and then made our way back to our room by 10 to pack.

We left walking right at 11am and headed back towards the highway. We passed a pharmacy and went in just to make sure they didn’t have the bug lotion we wanted.. they didn’t, but we did all buy new headphones. It was worth the stop. Margot also got a marker to write on her tyvek sheet that goes under her tent. We walked to the highway on ramp area for the direction we needed to go and Marquis and I started putting our thumbs out while Margot wrote out, “PCT Hiker to Trail” on her Tyvek.

It took a whole 11 minutes before a man with his son in a nice truck pulled over to take us back to Snoqualmie Pass. They had just done a hiking trip together and were headed back to Spokane, going right by the exit we needed. They dropped us off in front of the pancake house. Margot and Marquis added some stuff to the hiker box inside the Inn connected to the restaurant, and we walked over to get a corn dog.

I was in no way hungry yet, but a hand dipped corndog is a hand dipped corndog and deserves to be eaten, hungry or not. We hung out at picnic tables in front of a convenient store.. then, Marquis had some people he knows surprise him! They had been following his garmin and had just hiked some in the area and decided to give him some trail magic! How cool! We all sat around talking until close to 1pm before we all decided we needed to get a move on.

Back on trail, the climb out of Snoqualmie was kind, even in the heat. The trail meandered easily up and down and through beautiful forest. Trail maintenance workers passed us coming back from working all day, making this trail pristine to walk on.. no blow downs or overgrowth. We were shocked to hike out over 8 miles today, to a gorgeous lake. I’m feeling a little nauseous and didn’t eat dinner (I did eat some of Margot’s peanuts), but I think it’s from being over stuffed from the town food.

Marquis made us a fire and we sat around talking until almost 9pm. We had to wait for our tents to dry out before setting up our sleep stuff, so we weren’t in any rush. Now, it’s 10:42, a late night for me, and I can hear owls hooting nearby and some kind of small critter near my tent. I’m praying it doesn’t smell my food and try to get into my tent. I also pray it’s actually a little critter and not a nimble large critter, because I have to pee again here in a sec. Haha. I think I’ll have my bright headlamp on for this one, because it’s a little unnerving.

Tomorrow, we’re planning on just over 17 miles and the terrain/elevation gain and loss doesn’t look nearly as difficult as the last few weeks have been. Something tells me that might mean more blowdowns and bugs-but we’ll see. Time to go pee and get some sleep. Morning always comes way too fast for me! Sweet dreams, yall!

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!