Day 140, 14.1 miles

I woke up early for once, eager to beat the potential torrential downpour and get to Mazama for my last resupply! It had rained last night but since I put up under some nice trees, my tent wasn’t too horribly soaked. Although it was only 14 miles, it was all a gradual uphill. One up side to having to do all those cruddy alternates with horrible steep and bushy trails is that now the PCT feels like a well-graded highway!

Super cool fungus!

I passed some of the largest trees I’ve seen yet on trail. In the picture above I’m standing about 6ft away from it just to get the whole thing in frame! It’s HUGE!! The weather was overcast but nice and sunny and bright somehow even through the gray clouds.

The sun broke out and the yellows and oranges really started to pop out. There was plenty of water all over the place, and my pack felt extra light since I was close to town! I saw Happy (the older one), and we leapfrogged a few times for about 5 miles or so. There were some really neat giant logs placed over some of the river crossing which I really liked. One of them was cut and placed at a strange angle. I still walked across it (carefully), but I figured that some other hikers might opt for a river ford.

That’s not right! Haha

Even though I had a huge cinnamon roll for breakfast, I still got hungry for lunch pretty early, and the pizza that I packed out from the bakery near Stehekin didn’t last past 10:30am!

Yum yum!!

I hit the Rainy Pass Highway just after noon and came across this little pleasant surprise:

Someone had set up this mini monument on a smooth flat rock at Rainy Pass. About a week and a half ago the trail was closed all the way to the border from here at Rainy Pass! I thought it was really neat that someone made this little monument for the hikers that had to end their journey here.

Words to go along with the monument 

I stood out on the road for only about 15 minutes before I got a ride down into Mazama. My ride was a sweet older lady from Salt Lake City Utah who was visiting her son up in Seattle. She talked a lot about different things for the 30 minute ride down into town. It felt great to just listen for once instead of doing all the talking. Her husband had passed away when her son was just 7, and she said that her relationship with her son was not confrontational or too disciplined, but instead as an honest friend. Listening to her reminded me of my girlfriend Claire and her mother Dona, who are an inspiration to me in terms of how a parent and their offspring can get along so well. 

Car views of the pass and surrounding area

I got dropped off at the store and saw Rachel and Alcatraz (the father/daughter hiking duo), along with mom and their two dogs! I picked up THREE packages from the gear store nearby (how loved I feel!) One from mom that consisted of the bulk of my resupply food, an envelope from Claire which had my passport and entry to Canada permit, and one from Sarah that had more food goodies! This is the last package that I’ll pick up on the PCT, and I can’t express how thankful I am to you three especially for supporting me in this way!

Cool art in the store! “The Ledge” - Sean McCabe

At the store I saw Caribou and Streetfighter and they said there was someone at the trail angel’s place that was looking for me! I packed up my pack with all my new food and headed out the half mile over to Ravensong’s Roost. Ravensong is as far as we know the first woman to ever complete the PCT as a thru-hike back in 1976. She has opened up her sweet bunk house to hikers to use and wait out bad weather before finishing. 

Magic!

It was Magic who was waiting for me! He had finished three days ago and hiked back down south. His buddy drove all the way across the country from New York to pick him up and take him home! I was glad I got to see him again! I also saw Pabst and Power Mode, the two French hikers from Quebec.

Power Mode and Pabst

The bunkhouse has a whole upstairs area where hikers can sleep, but I was scoping out all the neat tents in the yard!

I decided on this one!

So roomy! Didn’t even have to use my sleeping pad!

I heard that the Inn’s restaurant near the general store had dinner starting at 5:30pm. The Roost has multiple bikes that is hikers can use to get back and forth from the Roost to the store instead of walking the 1/2 mile. I took a bike and headed back over towards dinner! 

Two-pack on a bike! 

Mazama is sure beautiful!

Streetfighter and Caribou were still there and they were going to hit the restaurant too, so we all headed over together. Bike Squad!! We stood in the entryway to the restaurant because of the “Pleases wait to be seated” sign, but eventually I went to the Inn’s office to see if anyone was actually working the restaurant. She said that they didn’t offer dinner Monday-Wednesday! Oh no! As far as we knew this was the only place in town that had dinner, but a quick Google search said that there was a pizza place ~3 miles away! That was only ~15 minutes away on a bike so we rolled down the highway towards dinner (again)!

So worth it!!

We ate lots of pizza and drank beer to our hearts content. Caribou lives in Portland and works about 6 blocks from where Claire and I live, and I told her we’d pop in and visit her one day. Street Fighter is a graphic designer from Switzerland and that’s (sort of) what I went to school for, so it was fun to talk about that world for a little while. It was soon dark and the theee of us headed jack to the Roost, where I crawled into my own personal giant tent and passed out! 

Thanks for reading!