Day 125
Slept well in the rain. Not really any condensation problems. However, I had my backpack within my tent it was soaking wet and a surpringly large amount of water had drained from it and down under my sleeping mat and there were small pools of water. Not that nice, especially if it wasn’t for the fact that I would be able to dry it out later today. I wasn’t using any backpack cover as I had my stuff in a heavy duty plastic bag inside it, as it in contrast to a backpack cover is completely waterproof including the back section where water otherwise would tend to seep in in the long run and the bag would also protect your stuff should you slip during a river fording. To cut a ling story short or at least shorter, I spent quite a lot of time packing stuff together in order to not get anything more wet than it already was.
On a more positive note, though, the rain had subsided. I was up by four thirty am, so it was still dark, but I couldn’t see any stars so it was still overcast or misty. My reason for being up that early: not having the usual mad rush to make it to “town” at the cost of my beauty sleep. The town here was Stevens Pass, where I hopefully would have a resupply package waiting for me. “Hopefully” because the delivery info based on the tracking number was not very specific and the slightly odd way the person in the UPS store entered it. Anyways, that’s not for a while.
As the sun rose and the trail ascended, clouds could be seen forming across the valley and where the sun shone through the trees, steam could be seen rising from the plants and fallen logs. A bit later, I looked up and found the sky to be clear except for a few small clouds. Hurray! That along with almost no smoke made for some really nice views of the landscape we went by for the first time in a long while. There where picaresque lakes and steep hillsides where only the trees seemed to be able to find root. There were also a bunch of the grey marmot of which tree seemed to have a get together/hangout and didn’t mind me to much. There were also small rodents of rat size without a tail, that I didn’t know the name of but had seen a couple of times before. Like yesterday it was a lot of ups and downs as the trail crossed four passes but that also meant a lot of different scenery.
I made it to Stevens Pass with one and a half hours to spare. No food to spare at all, though, as I had cheated a bit with the rations for each day. It was a ski resort that still was partly open by summer catering to cyclists and other tourists. The lady there looked for a long time for my name on a list and the suspense increased, but eventually my name showed up. It was just because it was so long ago, that I had sent it. I had an ice cream and an energy drink in the store, bought a couple of extra chocolate bars to be sure I wouldn’t run out of food again, and also paid the hiker box a visit. I packed my new food up and then went to “Stevens Lodge”, which was a mountaineers lodge nearby offering lodging and meals to PCT hikers here in the summer. There were ten or so other hikers there along with a mountain biker. I hadn’t met any of them before. For some reason the majority of the hikers were german, so a lot of german was spoken. Despite understanding german, I found it slightly wrong. When here in the US, I think we should speak English as visitors. They had a drying room in the basement, where much of my gear paid a visit. For dinner we had spaghetti bolognese and apple pie, which, while nothing out of the ordinary, still was way better than cold soaking. Going here was a nice idea, and brought back memories of my hut to hut hike around Mont Blanc last year.
This day’s miles: 2443-2464
