Day 129, 20.2 miles

It rained and rained all night and in the morning I didn’t want to get out of my tent for a long time. I finally decided that the rain I heard outside might’ve only been water drops dripping on my tent and not actual rain anymore. I didn’t even sit up in my sleeping back until nearly 8am! Clean Turkey and Hauser and Rocky were all already gone. I could see Bear Cub’s tent still set up just down the way.

A wood conch family

The morning was fog filled and cold, but around noon some of the clouds started to burn off and I could actually see things! I caught up to Google and we hiked about 10 miles of the 20 mile stretch together to get into Snoqualmie. Both of us were feeling pretty worn out and going slower than usual, but the want for town food pushed us onward! I got service and was able to call some family on the last ridges before hitting town.

Bright sky?

Coral Mushroom (or moldy ball of rice?)

I finally popped out of the forest and onto some open ski runs. It was super neat being up there under the lifts in the summer and imagining what line I’d take down with a snowboard attached to my feet. I took a few pictures and they are my favorite of the day.

I got a call from Manza as I was just a few miles away which was surprising since I thought he was behind me having left White Pass later. It turns out that he had tried to push 30 mile days to catch up with us and had hurt his knee! He was just 5 miles behind us the day after the cabin when he decided he needed to hitch in from a dirt road and get off his knee. He was hanging out down in town at a food place called Aardvark Express and had saved some fried rice for me that the owners had given the hiker trash.

Fried rice with an egg on top!!

All hikers also get a free beer at Aardvark Express, and I was so happy to eat and drink right when I got down from the mountain! Yum yum! I went to the next door Chevron to get my package from Claire and believe it or not I found her package in a matter of seconds, even amidst a huge storage container of boxes! 

Needle in a haystack!

My tent and some of my other things were still wet from the rain last night, and the Summit Inn was about a block away from the Chevron. They offer a hot tub and a sauna and our big group of 8+ decided we’d splurge on rooms instead of walking half a mile in the cold down to the hostel for $20 a night (and no hot tub or WiFi). Manza and I split a bed, and 5 of us crammed in a room and all got hot showers, dried out our gear, and did our laundry together.

After we got clean and warm clothes we headed across the street to a restaurant called Common Wealth where we all got great food and beers! It was there we discovered that Verde is the White Snoop...

At dinner I saw Alright and Omri and one of their friends who I didn’t recognize had taken a cool photo of me who shared it with me. After that we went back to the Inn and Manza and Google and I went straight for the hot tub. Clean Turkey joined later too.

Somewhere back in OR?

Google and Manza steaming it up!

I showered again after the hot tub and got into a cozy bed! Man it feels so good to be in a bed again! It’s true I’ve only been gone from Portland for a little bit but Washington has taken a lot out of me already! I’ve decided to take a proper zero tomorrow and just hike out Sunday; there’s a 20 mile up and down right out of the bat and I’d like to start that in the morning as to not end my day way up high over 6,000’ (and I’m DEFINITELY not leaving tomorrow morning!)

Thanks for reading!