Day 140: Mile 2211.8 - 2229.9

We had camped last night beside a little pond, off trail, on the way down to Wood Lake and maybe it was setting up and then eating in the dark but it was cold. As in I wore my puffy to bed and it was still cold. And I woke and again the tent was great inside, and I feared for the worse outside, and when I finally got outside, well it was still kind of gray, just the sky was turning blue. Turns out when you camp on the west side of the mountain, in the woods, it's cold in the morning! Which leads to a lethargy when striking camp. But when I got going, when my feet hit the PCT proper, the energy kicked in and off I went, chasing the sun, and when the PCT crossed over to the east side of the ridge and the sun, golden and warm, hit me, everything was all right with the world.

Oh and I passed the campsite I had been considering yesterday as a stretch goal (but then Cookie had come up the trail and I thought it better to camp with her than alone, even if alone meant an extra mile on the day), and it was nice--would've woken to eastern sun in the middle of the woods! If I was taking it easier I'd keep that in mind: look for eastern campsites, but all I see nowadays is the mileage--let's do 22 today, or 23--and wherever that puts me, that's where I camp!

But the goal for today was indeed to go go go to make it to the last Trout Lake shuttle at 5:30pm. I started out at about 8am, which gave me roughly 9 hours to make 18 miles, which seemed eminently doable. And I did make it--got there with around an hour to spare. And did it with only 3 breaks--one major one for lunch and to dry out my rain fly (condensation--one of the perils of camping near water), and two minors for catholes. I admit I didn't see much hiking today, all I perceived was more green tunnel, but it could also have been because I was in head-down-and-hike mode. I did start to see, though, the big trees. Well, mostly their trunks, so wide around I would need three or four of me, fingertip-to-fingertip, to put my arms around them. I'm told there are more big trees further ahead--I'll have to take a picture with them, but today I was too much in go go go mode to take the time.

I did take a stop at Steamboat Creek to eat lunch, and the usual yellowjackets came out to buzz around as I ate. And as I was sitting there, chewing my Grape Nuts, my spoon in my hand, I looked down and saw a yellowjacket calmly walking up and down my pointer finger. And there's nothing to do but wait for it to fly off, but I will say I don't mind the yellowjackets until they start flying too close to my hands or mouth--they like to buzz above my spoon while I'm trying to raise food to my mouth--that's when I start getting nervous.

Oh, and there was one random encounter on the trail today: today at lunch, a hiker who I didn't immediately recognize but who looked vaguely familiar, comes up while I'm packing up, and I had set up my tripod to do a gravity hang for my Sawyer, and he complimented it--I've never seen someone use a tripod for that, he said. And we talked a bit and he said, you look familiar, what's your trail name? And I said charlie, and he said, hmm, have I seen you before? And I asked what his trail name was. Gray Jay, he said. Acton KOA, I immediately replied. And then we both remembered. He'd done most of the trail last year, but some parts he couldn't get to: he'd gotten to Cascade Locks late, around September 7, and had flipped up to the Terminus and headed south. He had gotten as far as White Pass before he got stuck in Packwood due a 8-day storm. That was supposed to have a 3-day window in the middle, but never materialized, so after he saw the feet of snow come down, he called it and went home. So he's finishing up the Timberline to White Pass section. And he's close!: from Trout Lake (which he'll get into tomorrow morning--he's *not* pushing it) to White Pass is less than 70 miles. But since he's now a section hiker, he's taking it easy and wandering more: the other day, he saw a fire lookout off to the trail, and headed over on a whim, and got beautiful views of Mount Hood on one side and Mount Adams on the other. And I didn't even know there *was* a fire lookout anywhere near here! But I was happy to see him: we had talked for a while at the Acton KOA, around the picnic table, in the dark, and it's amazing that here, months later, we happen to bump into each other again! And he was encouraging, too: asked me when my schedule gets me to Canada and I said the 25th, and he said, oh, you'll make it. The weather will be bad for a few days in there, and you'll have to *endure* it, but there won't be anything weather-wise that will *end* your hike.

Meeting up with Jay again was a happy surprise, and I would see him again when I stopped to shed some base weight. He had found a nice log to sit on, sat, and promptly gotten stung by a bunch of yellowjackets--must have sat on their nest! Got up and ran a half mile! I gave him some of my Green Goo first aid salve to help with the itching--he'd never tried it before--and he commented that he thinks the yellowjackets get angrier in the autumn: they know winter is coming, and that that'll be the end!

Anyway, I kept going, got to Forest Service Road 23, sat down to wait for the shuttle with a bunch of other hikers. There was some trail magic--food from a friend of a hiker--so I got a muffin. And then the shuttle came and we started stuffing hikers into cars. For me, I ended up in the back of a covered pickup, stuffed back there with the backpacks and five hikers, but it wasn't bad. And then we got to town and the town chores started in. Get post from the general store, get dinner at the cafe, hunt for info on where to stay tonight, get said info and go to Camp Jonah, do laundry, get a shower, backwash filter, wash whatever is the most dirty, sort out resupply. And all that starting at 6pm. Did manage to get it all done, but it was a busy busy time.

Camp Jonah, though: Camp Jonah is a Christian camp made out of a converted school building. And the owners make it available to hikers, as in you can just walk in and use the place. There's a gym downstairs--hikers were roller skating and playing basketball down there--and in the hallway next to it are five classrooms that have been emptied of seats, and filled with metal bunk bed frames--three bunks high!--and mattresses. So hikers just grab a bunk to sleep. There are showers in the locker rooms near the gym, no charge, just shower stalls and hot water. There's a laundry machine upstairs--no charge, you can just use it, and there's big bottles of laundry detergent up there too--just get your clothes in the queue, combine loads as much as possible, and go. There's a large mess hall on the entry floor, with big long tables running the length of it, and a refrigerator we could use to store stuff, and a microwave to heat stuff, and even a coffee machine--all open, all free, no chrage, you can just use it. And there are more things, things I didn't even take advantage of: a big TV and a movie watching spot, a game room with pool tables and ping pong tables, a lot of stuff. And all just wide open: just there for us to use. And that's pretty incredible hospitality (and incredible trust!). I probably should have hung out more with the hikers--there's a lot around, mostly having fun while I was running around doing chores--but so it goes.

And that was the day! I would have stayed up much later writing, but since it's bunk beds in dorm-style rooms, I went to bed early to make sure I didn't come in in the middle of the night and disturb folks.

Previous   Next

Some notes:

-- Wood Lake Campsite > Mosquito Creek > Mosquito Creek > Steamboat Creek > Trout Lake Creek > Forest Service Road 23 > Trout Lake

-- At Camp Jonah, I did bump into Freewalker again and talk to him for a while. He has a YouTube channel, by the way, under Free Walker I think, and it's probably worth checking out. But he mentioned that on these trails, he likes not only the wilderness, but also the culture, and was looking forward to seeing the culture of Washington. And so far, it's been pretty nice--just look at this town of Trout Lake, he said--it's pretty nice. Wilderness-wise, he's still waiting for Washington to show him what makes it special, which I agree with: since coming out of Cascade Locks, the weather has been beautiful, but it's mostly been green tunnel. But I also ge the sense that Freewalker is starting to feel the fatigue of the trail as well, not just the physical fatigue that we all feel, but also the mental fatigue. He can't eat trail food anymore--the stomach just constricts and won't take it--and after doing the AT last year and the PCT this year, it's just a lot of thru-hiking. And he's an older guy--and there aren't that many older guys out here anymore--and he has a family that he's missing, and starting to wonder just what is it he's *doing* out here? And I admit I feel the same. The trail now is becoming more and more like a job--a nice job when I'm hiking, but a job nonetheless. There's a goal, a deadline, that I'm running to, and I feel anxious that I won't make it, or that I'll be spending days and days cold and wet in the rain, or that I'll wake up one morning under 2 feet of snow and not know what to do (because I don't). That combination of anxiety and rush--isn't that the same as rushing for a design review or a tapeout? Only for those there are strategies for speeding things up, but here I hike as fast as I hike, and that's about it. At most I try to reduce breaks and reduce 

-- Camping cohort: there are about 7 of us in the Mount Baker Dorm room. I know Cookie of course--we came into town together and ate and did chores and whatnot together--and Twilight and Freewalker, and then a bunch of other folks. But in town, I also met Otter (who was in back in the truck), and Noelle (who said, I recognize you: you were the first other thru-hiker I saw on trail, just out of Tehachapi), and Babs (who after Forester Pass pointed out the campsite at which I met Jean and Jane), and Paris (who helped check out Uno after her fall), and McQueen and Pain Perdu (who helped *me* out after *my* fall), and Spot (the woman, who recognized me from hiking with Double Snacks), and on and on. Lots of folks here!

-- I was pretty impressed with Cookie today: she started about 45 minutes after me, yet arrived at the shuttle at Forest Service Road 23 just a little after me. She said she's gotten a lot stronger and she has: I'm not a fast hiker by any means, but I used to be faster than her--I suspect that, if she puts her mind to it, the tables have turned!

-- Oh, I should mention that there is a piano at Camp Jonah: an upright in the hallway that leads to the chapel. And I did try to play something on it, and I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Back in Idyllwild and Big Bear I least had a little something, but here I was playing just a 1-6-4-5 chord progression, in straight C major, and I had nothing. Nothing creative in the fingers at all, just the standard patterns. And I couldn't even come up with other chord patterns: in the moment, I couldn't even remember the minor version of 1-6-4-5! Ah, it's something I'll need to build back up when I get home. Oh, and I did try out something Otter mentioned at dinner, a backdoor 2-5 he called it, which consists of the 1, the 4 in major 7 mode, then the 4 in minor 7 mode, then what looks like the 7, possibly diminished? I tried playing the chords a little bit and there details to be figured out, but basically it works. Something else to build back up when I get home!

-- Today's peanut M&M color is orange. And that finished the bag!