Month: July 2023

Start: 367.8

Stop: 383.1

Today’s miles: 15.3

Total PCT miles: 570.9

I think today might be my favorite day so far on trail! If not absolutely favorite, definitely top 3.. nah, it was definitely my number one. It was unbelievable!

I slept awful, not sure why.. but I finally dozed off well after 4am and when my watch vibrated at 6:30 I did not want to get up.. but Margot and Marquis were both basically packed and staring at me through their tents. Haha. Crap. They had been trying to wake me, but I slept through their whispered calls.

They left before I had my tent packed, but I was able to quickly finish up and get on trail just before 7! Not too bad! I was happy with it. The first several miles were through the woods, the trail padded with small pine cones and soft dirt. It was around 9 when I started to climb up the steep ascent of the day, the one that took us out of the woods and into exposed stunning scenery for miles and miles all around.

We sat around and filtered snowmelt water on some rocks by a huge meadow. Snow patches were around, but nothing crazy. Jagged peaks jutted out above us and we could see Mount Rainier with every turn of a switchback. From the stream the climb got more intense and steep. We crossed lots of water and seriously I was mesmerized by the beauty of this place. It felt untouched and pristine. Tons of different colored butterflies and bees and dragonflies flitted around to all the wildflowers, the grass was popping up, so lush.

At some point we reached the ridge line and the trail weaved across the edges, with steep drop offs on one side or the other, sometimes both.. they called this part the Knife’s Edge. Looking up ahead it was easy to psych yourself out, because it looked way sketchier than it actually was. Once you were close enough to see it, it was no big deal at all. Don’t get me wrong, if you slipped and fell, well.. you’d only do it the one time.. but otherwise it was just spectacular views from every single angle.

From the Knife’s Edge the trail hit a junction, the alternate being the steep climb up to the base of Old Snowy Mountain-the steep climb included tons and tons of slate and scree to slip and twist your feet on. The regular PCT route crossed 2 snowy sections that were steep, but potentially not that bad-however the steeper, slate and scree climb was known for way better views. It’s not like it was miles and miles of an alternate trail, it was just a short but different way to get around the same mountain top.

When we finally got to the junction to either head up to the summit of Old Snowy Mountain or continue on the alternate to reconnect with the PCT, we took a break and sat at the top with stellar views, with Driver and his friend. They shared a beer with me (they had brought 3)! It was awesome, drinking a Washington made IPA at this mountain top with views of Mount Rainier, Mount St Helen’s, and Mount Adams! It really couldn’t be beat!

I sat and hung out while Marquis and Margot made the side trip to summit Old Snowy. I just didn’t want to rock climb or slide down anything extra today. When they were back, we still had almost 8 miles to make it to camp. Sheesh, the views really sucked us in today! We started heading down the other side and reconnected with the PCT. I took a wrong turn and had to back track, thankfully only after a few minutes.

The other side of this mountain was also covered in wildflower meadows and was beautiful as could be. Even still, my feet started to ache. And I realized I let my face and my legs get sunburnt. Why didn’t I put on sunscreen? I have some readily available in my hip pocket! Sheesh. I slowed way down. We all met back up at a hidden waterfall that was quite gorgeous, it’s own little oasis, and then I slowly followed them, watching as they got farther and farther ahead.

I eventually made it to camp around 6:45 ish and we went to find somewhere to set up. There’s several other people here tonight, too, including my new beer sharing friends lol. We set our tents up, got water from the lake, and immediately retreated inside our safe havens, because after a day of basically zero mosquitoes, they’re here. Ugh.

I really hope I can sleep better tonight. I’m not sure what my problem is but the last few haven’t been very restful at all. Once my phone is charged, I’m shutting my eyes and trying my best to drift off to dreamland. Goodnight y’all.

Start: 383.1

Stop: 403.4

Today’s miles: 20.3

Total PCT miles: 591.2

Today wasn’t very exciting, especially after the day we had yesterday. I refused to get up before 7am-and even then I was on trail by 7:30, only a few minutes after the others. It had just started sprinkling as I was packing inside my tent, so I ended up with a wet tent to pack. Boo.

It was cold, windy, and raining. Thankfully the rain was light, so with my rain jacket on I felt warm enough when I was moving. The temperature was somewhere in the 50s all day, with mostly cloud cover until later in the afternoon. This didn’t stop the mosquitoes though, if I stopped for anything at all I was immediately swarmed.

I leapfrogged with Driver and his friend all morning and then caught up to Margot around lunchtime. We ate chips together, both not really wanting our other food-I have too many dinners so I could have cooked something but the bugs were too much. We ended up hiking close by each other the rest of the afternoon. There were no real views to see, either from the clouds or because of being in dense woods.

At one point she pointed out Mount Adams to me.. yesterday it seemed so far away, and today the base of it shocked me by how close and absolutely massive that mountain was! I had no idea we had gotten so close in just a day! Crazy! I wish the clouds would have cooperated so I could have gotten a better look, but no dice.

We made it to our designated campsite area by 4pm.. 20 miles done. There were tons of people camped here, but no Marquis. We sat and ate some skittles before deciding to walk the extra 0.3 of a mile to the next campsite, since it also has water. We weren’t sure if we’d stay there if he wasn’t there or keep pushing until we found him, since it was still pretty early.

Our sore feet were grateful that he was at the next site. Theres a bigger creek rushing by with brownish water, and then the back of the campsite has a crystal clear smaller stream feeding into it. It’s perfect! We all agreed to stay here and spent the next 4 hours setting up our tents, laughing, eating dinner and laughing some more. I have the most fun around these two.

Tomorrow we have another 20.3 miles to go to get to the road crossing into Trout Lake. The last shuttle leaves at 4:30pm, so hopefully tomorrow goes as smoothly as today did. It feels fast to be in town again already, but it’ll be another town with camping out back instead of a bed, so it doesn’t feel as exciting as it should. I mean, hot shower, clean clothes and apparently an awesome taco truck *is* super exciting.. but a real bed sounds pretty nice, too.

Knowing I have to get up early is making my eyelids droop already. Time to get some shut eye. Sweet dreams, y’all.

Start: 403.4

Stop: 423.6

Today’s miles: 20.3

Total PCT miles: 611.5

Can you believe, I actually fell asleep before the sun went down! It wasn’t quite 9pm yet. I slept solid, unmoving (that I’m aware of) until early morning when I woke up wide eyed, ready for the day, and had to pee. It was still dark, and I didn’t hear Marquis or Margot moving yet, so I decided to venture out to pee first, then pack.

I got back to my tent, a little chilly, and tapped my phone. It was only 12:47! Haha not even 1am yet! Lord. I’m glad I didn’t deflate my sleeping pad! I rolled over and then spent the next 2 hours tossing and turning because I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Eventually I did, and I slept great until it was time to actually get up. I left camp a few minutes after 6:30, after both of my friends.

I was sort of worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up, or that I’d show up after they left on the 4:30 shuttle into Trout Lake. I shouldn’t have though, we all made it with plenty of time to spare.. just over 20 miles before 3pm. Impressive if I do say so myself.

The first part of the day was an uphill steady climb that half the time didn’t even feel like the grade of the trail was angled upwards. It was easy and beautiful.. covered with meadows and views of Mount Adams up ahead and Mount Rainier when I turned my head to the right. There were small ponds and creeks. It was like walking through a fairy tale. I ended up seeing a coyote cross in front of me up ahead on trail and dart off into the woods to my left, I tried to get a picture or a video but he moved way too fast. He was large, swift moving, grey and white in color. Majestic really.

There was a fast moving creek to cross, Marquis had crossed both branches of the creek on slippery logs. I crossed the first branch on logs, my foot slipped once and when I saw the logs to cross on the other side, I decided I just needed to walk through the water and give up attempting to keep dry feet. There were rocks at the end of the logs and I didn’t think I’d have the balance or leg reach to hop to them without falling. I picked the easiest looking place and went for it.

It was ice cold glacier water, but silty grey so I couldn’t see the bottom. The water lapped around my calves but overall it went smoothly. Margot ended up following where I went, the water coming to the tops of her calves. We had frozen feet for the next 20-30 minutes of our hike.

It started to get hot outside, very sunny, too. And then we hit a burn zone for a solid 8 or so miles. That unrelenting heat, some bugs.. it was easy to see why we were all moving as fast as our feet could carry us. I didn’t even stop for lunch. I just ate and walked and hoped I wasn’t eating bugs while shoveling random snacks in my mouth. At some point I passed Marquis while he was getting water and when he passed me again he said he was following my trail of dorito crumbs. Yikes. Sorry, trail. I tried.

When Margot and I got to the road crossing there was trail magic! Someone had set out a cold case of beer! Alright! I got myself one and we caught up to Marquis, sitting there waiting for us .. the three of us went to sit by the road junction to attempt to hitch into Trout Lake, otherwise we would have to wait over an hour and half for the 4:30 shuttle. There was a couple sitting there already, so we made room and chit chatted.. every time we heard a car (maybe one every 20-30 minutes) Marquis and I would jump up and stick our thumbs out.

We had one stop close to 3:45. I think the other couple thought I was going to take it, but I told them we got it for them, I was totally fine waiting with my friends. They were shocked and excited, happy to be getting their ride into town, finally. I’m not sure how long they had been sitting there waiting before we showed up.

Several cars passed after that.. not stopping. A jeep with a cute older couple stopped at one point, but just to talk to us and tell us they’d been married for 50 years and were from Texas. Another car stopped and none other than Heidi and Mads were in it! I raced around their car to hug Mads’ neck! I’ve really missed them so much. We all agreed we’d see each other in town, since their hitch had no more room in their car for us.

With 20-25 minutes to spare, finally a truck stopped! Two men out fishing offered 4 of us a ride! Then as we were piling in the bed of their truck, another truck stopped to take the other hikers that had been trickling in over the last hour.. but they declined it, saying they’d wait for the shuttle (which still happened to be pick up trucks, but whatever).

Margot, Marquis, and none other than Cowbell from my first week on trail with Andrea got in the back of the pickup truck with me! The guy driving offered us a beer, yes please, and we were taken into the cutest tiny town of Trout Lake! I think I love it here! It has one general store, a hair salon, post office, gas station and cafe, and a food truck that serves tacos, burritos, and nachos. There’s also a little church that apparently has free camping out back too.

We ate at the taco truck (burrito for me), and then went to scout out our surroundings. The hiker hangout beside the general store was very nice, but there were tons of hikers, hanging out. Which is fun sometimes, but when you’re exhausted it can feel like a lot. At the hiker hangout you can’t set up your tent until after 8pm, and there was sprinklers currently going over the grass.. so that means that we’d have to set up our tents on wet grass.

We waited it out, checked out the general store and got an ice cream sandwich (well, I did, they got a half gallon of ice cream to share lol). We talked to those that were there, caught up with Mads and Heidi, let the exhaustion kick in. Everything closes early so we knew we’d have to wait until tomorrow to do laundry and shower and all that.

We decided to check out the church instead of waiting until 8pm to set up our stuff at the hangout. Man are we glad we did! The couple that got the hitch earlier were the only ones there!! Compared to at least 10-15 at the hiker hangout, hell yeah! We had the place to ourselves! There was a huge yard to set up our tents, with some space between them to breathe, plus picnic tables under a gazebo and porta potty’s with a soap and water sink! WOW.

We got our stuff set up and then did a pack shake down. We each went through all of our things and justified each item. The things we couldn’t justify anymore got put in a pile for either the hiker box or the post office to send home. We all had stuff for both. Mine for the hiker box was the big fuel canister, still probably half full, I’ll get a small one tomorrow. It just fits better and I’m sick of carrying the big one. My stuff to mail home is my coffee cup, sun gloves, extra ear plugs, and microspikes.

I checked my email during all of this and realized I had just gotten an email about my Antarctica trip next March. They gave me the dates I wanted AND the cabin on the cruise l wanted, too! Heck yeah! They also gave me a 3 day window to make a hefty payment. Uh, wow, guys.. 3 days? I guess it’s a good thing I happened to get to town today! Sheesh. I reached out to my friend Ashley that’s going to go on the trip with me and she was able to help me with some of the paperwork stuff the company requires, other than that, I think I was able to get it all squared away. That’s a relief.

I also talked to Curmudgeon, who I hiked with on the AT, he and his wife, Cholula. They live in Portland now and offered to come see me when I get to the Bridge of the Gods in Cascade Locks, which is our next town and hopefully our first zero since Stehekin! This is definitely the longest I’ve gone without a zero I think.. like ever. I’m a bit proud, but a lot exhausted. I think I’m ready to lay around and do NOTHING for a day. Even though when we zero we’ll have chores to do.. like plan and send our resupply boxes for some places in Oregon.

Now, the sun is gone and I think it’s time to try to get some sleep. We have to get up early and do all of our chores before catching the 12 shuttle back to the trailhead. Goodnight 🙂