Day 128, 25.9 miles

I woke up early in the cabin upstairs. I did not have the best of sleep. The ground was hard and for some reason I woke up in the middle of the night SO hungry and had to eat some food! I slept sandwiched between Google and a wall. I felt bad because we were facing each other and I think I was snoring in his face, but at one point he coughed on me in his sleep so I guess we’re even! Haha.

The great thing about sleeping indoors is you don’t have a shopping wet tent to put away in the morning! Everything was dry and I was the first out of our group to leave. I felt super energized and blasted through the morning. I climbed up a big hill and there were the most huge, ripe huckleberries I’d ever seen in my life!! 

Morning views...

So many huckleberries!!

The berry on the left represents the standard size of huckleberry that I’m used to seeing, the three on the right represent the size of some of the monsters today!

The good news continues! I got service way up on a hill and was able to ask Claire to send my 20° sleeping bag and a warm mid layer back to me in Skykomish and she went to the Post Office today to send it! Thank you Claire! The weather looks nice and cold up North, and I’ll be super happy to have the extra warmth back. Plus, if my tent ever gets compromised by rain again, my 20° does a lot better when wet than the 40°.

Huge Salmon Berry!

A missy triple tree

The view for most of the day

I kept pushing on quickly to a water source in between two dry stretches (in Washington a dry stretch is like 7 miles, haha). Just before I got there I ran into Rocky, a hiker from Hungary who I met just outside of Belden. Believe it or not folks, the good news CONTINUED!! Rocky got service up at the water and checked the PCTA website. THE CANADIAN BORDER AT THE NORTHERN TERMINUS IS NOW OPEN!!! 

Oh my goodness, this is the best news ever!! This means I’ll be able to actually hike all the way to the Northern Terminus and Manning Park! The trail is closed for 17.5 miles and the alternate is just 21 miles! That means it only adds 4.5 miles! Woo-hoo!! Ahhhhh life is GOOD!!!

Believe it or not folks, the good news continued yet! Not one mile later down the hill I ran into trail magic at a road crossing! The trail angel’s name was “Not Phil’s Dad”, and he had beer and snickers!! All I’ve ever wanted on the PCT had come true. Yes!! Since I was at the front of the huge group of people that left the cabin, I slowly saw more and more people trickle in.

L to R: Rocky, Verde, Clean Turkey, Hauser, Cheesesteak, Level, Curdles, and Bear Cub

There were many more people there than in this picture, and at some point I decided that I had to keep on moving! Although the cabin and surrounding area  I stayed at last night could accompany 20 people, I knew that the up and down terrain up ahead with limited campsites could not. I hiked up the next huge hill trying to get ahead of the herd behind and maybe spread out some of the camping.

Wooden Conch

More berries!!

A fun downhill

I ended up going up and over the top of the climb and descending way down to some nice tree cover to set up camp. I was later joined there by Clean Turkey and then Hauser and then Rocky. There is rain in the forecast so I set up my fly. It’s been a long day, I’m ready for some sleep! 

Thanks for reading!

Day 127, 26.6 miles

I woke up nice and warm under the trees. I was super super lazy and actually left camp last out of everyone that camped there. Dewey Lake was super beautiful, as was the rest of my day! I’m not going to say too much about the actual hiking as I hiked solo for most of the day like always. I will let the pictures speak for themselves! There was a lot of ridge hiking as well as some burn areas later in the day, enjoy the photos!!

Dewey Lake

Google floating through Washington like...

Ahhhh!!

Captured by Verde

Sheep Lake (sorry for the lines!)

See Rainier?

Verde

Crystal Mountain Ski Area

I want to come snowboard it in the winter!

Rainier over a burn

Sweet burn on a sandy ridge

Super red trees

During the day everyone who I saw kept talking about a cabin that they were all headed to tonight. I figured I’d check it out! At around 7:00pm I showed up to the Mike Urich cabin. It’s an old restored cabin maintained by a snowmobiling club which is open to the public and us PCT hikers! There were so many people there when I showed up!

Sorry for the lines...

About 7 of us decided to stay upstairs in the cabin and about 10 more people stayed outside of the cabin in their tents in the woods around it. It’s like a weird bottleneck of people that I’ve caught up with in the last few days. It almost feels like we’re in town but we’re 50 miles away from both White Pass and Snoqualmie! There’s no electricity in the cabin, so we were all in bed by around 8:45pm once it was dark out. 

Verde’s lamp; a phone flashlight under a bottle

Today was so dang beautiful! It really made me so happy to be here in Washington. I feel very lucky to have such nice weather for late August. I hope this streak continues into September for me! Again, sorry for being so lazy with the writing but it was such a long day and I’m sooooo tired!

Thanks for reading! 

Day 126, 22.7 miles

This morning we all woke up at the sandy beach at Sand Lake. All of our tents were soaked and frozen! The temps had dipped down low last night and condensation was really bad. Even though the top of my bag got wet I stayed nice and warm all night. I think everyone slept in later than they planned due to the frigid morning. There was a beautiful low mist that shrouded the area and nearby lake.

Frozen bag

The morning moon

Verde and Clean Turkey

Sand Lake

Although packing up and getting started was tough in the frigid cold, the morning was super beautiful! Soon it became warm enough to take off my gloves and jacket, and I was in a great mood just flying down the trail! Although we all camped together I hiked solo for 80% of my day. Seeing people at different water sources along the way.

2,300 miles!!

Blueberries!!

Fatty ones!!!

This next statement deserves its own paragraph; I LOVE BLUEBERRIES!! Maaaaybe even more than huckleberries but I’m not sure, haha.

Snow Lake

10:30am pack explosion (drying my gear)

Snow Lake

Today was such a neat day! I hung out at mosquito-free Snow Lake where I dried out my things and took a bunch of pictures, ate a lot of food, and hung out with dragonflies while soaking in my pretty surroundings. After leaving I went through an amazing thick forest section which was full of mushrooms! There were almost as many as the day I hiked with Caleb! Following are waaaaaay too many mushroom pictures:

The Grandfather!! This one was over 1.5ft tall!!!

King Beletus, harvested to eat but it dropped out of my pack later :(

Whew!! I TOLD you I saw a lot of mushrooms! And those were only my favorites!! After hiking with Caleb for these day I’ve developed a keener eye for spotting them, and it’s really fun to take pictures of them! One day I’ll learn all of the wild species of mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest! 

After I broke out of the forest I saw Verde and Google at anneat water source. Then I went across a couple beautiful meadows before starting a STEEP four mile climb up a huge mountain! We heard from some southbounders that there was a good view of Rainier at the top, and that definitely motivated me to FLY up the hill! The way up was so beautiful and scenic! Here come way more pics!!

Meadow

Neat boardwalk

Climbing

Then, at the very tippy top, I saw it!

Mt. Rainier!!

So big, so beautiful, so clear, so majestic, so stunning!! I’ve never seen Rainier from this close on such a clear day! It’s shrouded in clouds around 90% of the time and here I am just staring at it crystal clear!! I feel so lucky and I’m SO stoked to be in Washington seeing all these beautiful sights! Rainier just moved up to my second favorite mountain! (After Hood of course)

Gah!

Looking East into the valley I just came up from

I stopped for a late lunch around 1:30pm at a place with a great view of Rainier. It wasn’t really an obvious break spot, and I was off the trail and ~20ft up a steep hill on a small flat landing, so I got to see and surprise all my friends who I had passed on the big hill as they walked by unaware of me!

Great spot for lunch

I blew up my pillow to dry it it in the sun and this butterfly really loved the air valve for some reason.

I took so many pictures today! (As you can clearly see). It was just so gorgeous and I feel so blessed to finally be having this clear weather and great views after those many days of non-ideal conditions. I finally feel like I’m in Washington! The weather looks clear for the rest of the week minus a slight percent chance of rain on Thursday.

Today was a fun day sprinkled with great friends. All of us minus Hiker Box Hero ended up camping in the same place tonight. The night isn’t as cold and I’m camped in some trees, so I doubt tomorrow morning will be as wet and miserable. Looking forward to more beautiful days like this in this amazing state!

Thanks for reading!