We all decided to maximize our town dollars and signed up for the noon shuttle. Bunny tried to sleep in, but I was wide awake by 7:15. I tried to get her to get up and have breakfast, but I received death threats when I leaned over to her. I know how Bear felt every morning when he had the task of waking Sassy up. What we poor men-folk have to suffer for the privilege of catering to our wives’ every need. Are we appreciated? Do we get acknowledgement? Or is it that we choose to suffer in silence for the benefit of our marriages. Let’s all hear it for Bear and Easy. Can I get an “Amen”?
After being banished to the bathroom for a while (it’s okay, we had porcelain. I didn’t have to dig a hole and lean against a tree while I played Candy Crush), I ventured back in and made another attempt to gently awaken my bride. I got yelled at because she was in the middle of a dream. She needs to wire up an astral projector to her brain so I am able to watch her dreams so that I know when it’s safe to interrupt. She cattily allowed me to buy her breakfast at the cafe down the street. It wasn’t the breakfast in bed she has come to expect, nay, demand, but it will have to do. I even gave her my over easy chicken abortions to try to cheer her up. It helped a little.
After breakfast, we went back to our room, packed up, and did last minute updates to blogs and vlogs until our checkout time arrived. I alternated between popping back down to the cafe to catch up with Someday, Wea, Fancy Pants, and Dan and tending to my wife’s every need while she grew used to the idea that we were going to have to hike again. The month of bussing and hotel living we did on the Oregon Coast has set us back in the expectations column.
There was a full load of 8 in the shuttle heading back to the trailhead. The other two riders were a Swiss couple over here for 6 months to hike the PCT and do some sightseeing if time permits. We talked about Switzerland a bit with them. They seemed like a very nice couple. They had planned on switching jobs, so they quit the ones they had and accepted new positions with delayed start dates so they could hike the PCT. They started hiking from Canada less than a month ago. Since they are sobo, it’s unlikely we’ll run into them again. We got a group picture before we headed in different directions.
Because of our late start, we thought we’d do a smaller mileage day. We had looked at campsites with water in the 10-11 mile range. We were planning on going a bit further than we ended up, but there’s a good reason for that. The weather forecast called for sunshine for the next 10 days with only a 10% chance of rain today. The forecasts are set up a bit different in Washington. We’ve discovered that the percentage given is not the chance of rain, but the amount of the day it is going to rain. When the 10% kicked in on us at 5:30, we just picked the closest site to camp.
The day had started out perfectly for hiking. There was partial cloud cover and cool temps. We had a 2300’ gradual climb from the drop off point. The 6 of us started out hiking together, but we quickly separated into couple according to age. Dan and Fancy Pants are the oldest around 60ish. They are also ultra-lighters, so they outpaced the rest of us pretty early on. Bunny and I are in our mid 50s and have got well over a thousand miles of hiking in, so we were the next group. Someday and Wea are hiking the PCT the most difficult way of all of us. They are doing 3 week section hikes which means their bodies have to readjust to hiking each time they go out. They just started last week, so they were a bit slower to start today.
It didn’t take long for them to get warmed up and pass Bunny and me. We stopped to get some water about 3.5 miles in. I actually had a good scare getting the water. I dropped my pack on the trail and I got turned around trying to get back on trail. I ended up walking about 1/4 mile in the wrong direction. We were in a section of forest that had burned a couple of years ago and there weren’t identifiable trees for me to make note of. I tried calling out to Bunny for help but got no response. I felt a panic swelling up in me like Inchworm must have felt when she got off trail to go to the bathroom. It took 3 years to find her body.
We crossed paths with several sobos and people just out for short trips. All the sobos we met today were flippers from a Kennedy Meadows. We stopped and talked to several. One, Sigh, was originally from Chicago but now living in Denver. Like us, he loved Colorado the first time he visited it as a kid. When he got the chance, he moved there.
As the afternoon wore on, the cloud ceiling dropped and the clouds got darker gray. We had been walking on the shoulder of Mt Adams, but the clouds blocked it from our sight. We had caught glimpses of Mt St Helen to our left and Mt Hood behind us. We even caught a glimpse of Mt Rainier ahead of us. We caught back up with Dan and Fancy Pants sitting on an overlook having their supper. While we were talking to them, it started to sprinkle. It was just a little over a mile to the next campsite, so we hustled on down the trail.
The first spot we found was next to a small pond. There were already a couple of tents set up there. Someday asked if they were in their tents because of the rain or the mosquitoes. They said mosquitoes. We moved on. Homey don’t play that no more.
We found a large campsite by Riley Creek just a couple tenths further. We quickly set up our tents. Bunny did the homemaking while I went to get water. Because of the drizzle, the mosquitoes hadn’t been around. While I was getting the water, it stopped raining and they came back with a vengeance. They hadn’t really been too bad today until then. Wea and I were cooking outside and we all decided it was going to be an in tent dinner night. Dan and Fancy Pants came by while Someday and I were getting water. They decided they wanted to hike another hour and pushed on.
We’ve got another couple to hike with for a few days, but I’m guessing that we are going to lose them this weekend. We have a package from our angel Digit Alice coming in Packwood. We forgot to check on PO hours before we had it sent there. There are no weekend hours and we’ll be arriving Saturday. It looks like we’ll get another zero. Bunny will be so disappointed to not get her breakfast in bed again this Sunday.
EFG