Day 123, 13.6 miles

Last night, all three of us woke up to the sound of a screaming mountain lion! It couldn’t have been more than an 1/8th of a mile away from us! At this point Caleb moved from his hammock to his car, and I was quite thankful I had set up my tent instead of choosing to cowboy camp. We asked Ron the trail angel about it in the morning and he said he heard it to even though he was sleeping inside of his Honda Element when it happened!

Ron and his trail magic

Manza and I enjoyed trail magic of Pepsi, carrots, cantaloupe, ham and cheese sandwiches, and cookies while Caleb slept in. About 6 other hikers came and left and around 8:45am we started out on trail. Caleb was able to come on Friday (yesterday), so we had to just pick the closest road to where I’d be and hope for great views during the day! What we didn’t get were too many views, what we DID get were mushrooms!!

Today on trail there were tons of mushrooms all over the place! Caleb is very knowledged in searching for and identifying the different types and varieties of mushrooms, and it was really fun to go around and find different ones! All of the PICKED mushrooms in the following pictures were either harvested from off-trail or were rotted. In general we didn’t pick any babies or ones right on trail that others would be able to see! Excuse my false terminology and poor recollection of names, I hope I don’t mess them up too badly! Feel free to correct me if you see a mistake!

A huge common mushroom 

A rotting common mushroom with porcupine gills

King Beletus!!

A special foraging knife

Great find!

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Caleb called this one a puff ball (rotted)

Goat Rocks Wilderness!!

Common mushrooms hiding in some huckleberry bushes

King Beletus hiding under a common

Gotcha! Yum!!

Big Beletus!!

Same one (looks like a cheeseburger)

Just after noon, we broke out of the forest and got some sweet views through the clouds at some distant peaks. We could almost see Mount Adams at one point but it was hiding. The day was very cold again but it was kind of nice to hike with a shell on, and later in the afternoon it got quite sunny. 

Mount Adams in the clouds in the upper left corner 

The largest King Beletus we saw all day! This one was well off trail and the whole under-cap was rotted

Same one, it’s HUGE!!

A grouping of common mushrooms

Grandma’s home baked pie, hahaha

Wood Conchs

At around 4:00pm Caleb was pretty pooped, and all three of us were down to stop early after an 80% uphill day! We took a trail junction about 0.1 miles and found a little campsite. Manza and I ventured off to find better camping and a lake that we couldn’t find for about half an hour. We finally found a better spot and the three of us moved there. 

New camp spot view

Yeeeeeeaaaa!!

We had a small fire and cut up the King Beletus that we had found, and cooked them on a hot rock over some coals. This was hands down the best thing I’ve eating that I’ve found in the wild on trail! (And you guys KNOW how much I love berries!!) MMMM, I just want to find these mushrooms all over the place and eat them everyday! 

Grilling the mushrooms :)

It sprinkled a couple times on us so we all set up our tents and rainflies. Hiker Box Hero and Mougs rolled into camp and joined us around our fire. Three or four others arrived and went down close to the lake to camp. A huge mist had moved in and covered the mountains that were visible hours before. We’re hoping for a clear day tomorrow!

Same view from earlier but with the mist that rolled in

Tomorrow Caleb hiked back to his car and Manza and I hit Goat Rocks! This is supposedly one of the most beautiful parts of the entire trail, and we’re just hoping that the weather “cooperates”, whatever that means, and that we don’t have too bad of smoke. Well once again it’s past my bedtime..

Thanks for reading!!