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!
No comments:
Post a Comment