It was a struggle for me to wake up this morning…an impossibility for Bunny. It had rained a few times throughout the night which always puts me out like a light when combined with Benadryl. We could hear Charcoal B and Struggles packing up, but they had been moving around for less than 2 hours at this point. We knew we still had plenty of time. Super Dave was long gone.
We had looked at the map for a while last night lying in bed. I had chosen a campsite just 14.7 miles ahead. When we got on the trail and checked this morning, the same campsite was now 21.8 miles away. There’s a “feature” with Guthook where distances are given as “crow flies” when you are off the trail and given in trail miles when you are on the trail. We were less than 0.1 miles off the trail in camp, but far enough that Guthook considered us off. My bubble got burst pretty early this morning.
Add in that we were in low cloud cover/fog most of the day. When we did finally get up, we couldn’t even see the pond we were camped next to. Being part of a tramily means that there are other members to do some early morning scouting for the late risers. Charcoal B and Struggles had already found the pit latrine and helped to point us in the proper direction at the appointed time. It was just a box with a lid that automatically closed. This meant that the lid was leaning on your back the entire time you were present. There was a stick next to the seat to hold the lid up, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I thought of the stick more as a knife you use on a bottle of catsup. Sometimes, if you turn the bottle completely upside down, a vacuum is formed, so you stick a knife up the bottle through the catsup to release the vacuum. Bottom line, I wouldn’t touch that stick again.
Since we didn’t really have a viable plan for where to camp tonight, we decided to hike with Struggles and CB, at least until lunch. They, too, were torn on where to camp and were contemplating either 9.5 miles or 13 miles. When we did stop for lunch around noon, Struggles said she was feeling pretty good and still had another 7 miles in her even though we had already gone almost 6. 13 miles is good enough for us at this point. We only need to average 14 to make it to Stehekin before our food runs out.
I decided to put the new tramily to the test today. Anyone that has hiked with me for any period of time knows that I have the perfect trail singing voice. We started out with trivia where I mentioned “Roomisy gloomis” and tried to get anyone to name the show that was from. It’s such an easy gimme for anyone near my age but I got three give-ups right away. I threw in a few more facts to ease the way: there were 7 main characters on the show; the main character used to be on “Dobey Gillis”; the first season was in black and white but the final two were in color…I was pitching underhanded but no one could hit. Everyone reading surely knows by now. I had to resort to T-ball—the main character’s real last name is also known as the “mile high city”. Finally, Charcoal B asked if it was set on an island. We have a winner, so I sang the theme song…”Just sit right back and you’ll hear the tale, the tale of a fateful ship, that started from this tropic port…” (everybody sing)
The weather was cloudy and cool most of the day, which is perfect hiking weather. The drawback is that we have no views. Today was a rare crossing of an actual peak on the trail—Grizzly Mountain at just over 6000’. We did cross another Grizzly Peak in Northern California which scared us to the point that we got off the PCT for 6 weeks to allow the snow to melt. Coming down the backside of the mountain, we heard a hiker approaching from behind. He asked if he could pass so I called out for everyone to move over. He started to pass us and then turned to me and said “Easily Forgotten and Bunny Tracks, you said I wouldn’t remember you and you were wrong.” He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him until he said his name.
This was Store Brand who we had met in Northern California just before we were getting to Grizzly Peak. We met him, his twin brother (Trash Can) and Birthday Girl the day after they had gone over the other Grizzly Peak. It was their directions which helped us find the trail in the snow and the abandoned cabin we had spent the night in way back in May. He said his brother and Birthday Girl weren’t too far behind.
When Trash Can caught up, we walked with him for a bit to find out how they were doing trail-wise. They have less than 600 miles to go. After we passed them, they made it all the way to South Lake Tahoe before heading up to Cascade Locks and heading south to Ashland. Now they were heading north to to Canada then all they’ll have left is the Sierra from Walker Pass to South Lake Tahoe (just about 450 miles). They are going to finish the trail this year.
Store Brand and Trash Can hadn’t seen each other all day since they left Stevens Pass. Each of them told us they had seen a bear just off the trail. From our encounters with each of them, they were close to an hour apart while hiking. I’m putting money it’s the same Bear from the description Store Brand gave us and the pictures Trash Can showed us. I’ll bet the bear is a little freaked out after seeing 2 identical humans about an hour apart from each other. I’m sure he thinks that people are playing mind games on him and he has left the area, or he’s pissed and wanting revenge.
The fog had been switching from mist to light rain and back most of the afternoon. Now it was going for rain again. We stopped to put on our raincoats just in time for Birthday Girl to catch up. She had been seeing our name in trail registers along the way so they had been expecting to run into us. It’s so cool to run into people we met months ago on the trail. Until this past week, other than Blues Clues, we had only been running into people we met on the AT last year.
By now, we were less than 2 miles to our camp. Rain was picking up so Charcoal B and Struggles broke down and put their rain gear back on. The temperature was also dropping and I was worried about them getting cold. It doesn’t take long in a light rain like this before your core drops. The rain let up just long enough for us to set up our tents and get everything inside before it started even harder. We had made it just in time.
There’s a few things you should not do when hiking: Set up in a meadow if you have a single wall tent—check. Cook and eat in your tent while in bear country—check. Call Struggles the leader of the pack while hiking—check. Bunny and I scored a trifecta on the trail today.
EFG