Day 129 The small and uneven campsite right next to the bridge over Siuattle River worked perfectly despite my concerns. I was awakened by my alarm clock half past four am. That was a meant as a compromise: one one hand, I wanted to be able to get to Holden in time for dinner and with the possibility of getting a room there for the night. On the other hand, sleep. I thought half past…
Day 128 I woke up well rested. Just kidding, that alarm clock was way early, so half asleep me unfortunately pressed snooze twice. Other than that I did sleep quite well, though. The start of the trail today was a shortish descent along the forest floor, but it had a surprisingly high amount of downed trees forcing us hikers to either step over or halfway crawl/squeeze under. Not that it wasn’t anything that we hadn’t…
Day 127 I slept well until my alarm jolted me back into this world. I had put an emergency blanket under my sleeping pad and that seemed to have added some heat. I did still briefly wake up and had to put on my down jacket, though. Unsurprisingly, my tent was a bit damp from a heavy dew fall, but all my stuff was dry, luckily. The sky was blue when the sun finally peaked…
Day 126 I slept very comfortably in the Mountaineers Lodge and woke up over an hour before my alarm clock. For some reason they didn’t serve breakfast at five a.m. there, but I made sure to get things packed so I would quickly be ready to go afterwards. The breakfast was very nice, and most certainly worth waiting for. It was also nice with some small talk with the other hikers. One had already left…
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…
Day 124 Slept surprisingly well and was awoken by my alarm at five am intending to get a lot of miles in today. The weather was exactly as last night, which is to say that it was overcast but not misty or raining. It had, however, been dripping a bit during the night as evidenced by the dry spot left behind by my tent. First thing on the agenda was an 2400 feet ascent (700…
Day 123 Had ice cream and leftover pizza for breakfast. A few lose ends that needed fixing meant that I got going at 8:30 am, which wasn’t terrible. Briefly before I left, I randomly looked out of the window and saw Oldtimer limping over the parking lot with to hikers that I didn’t know. He didn’t seem like he was going anywhere today. I sure hope that it’s nothing serious. Anyways, when I got back…
Day 122 Today had all the elements of a classic resupply day: resupplying, laundry, phoning home, adding missing diary content, reviewing photos, et cetera et cetera. Went to the nearby grocery store which is actually just an euphemism for a convenience store for resupply. I bought a twenty one inch family sized pizza and took it back to the hotel. It stretched for both lunch and dinner, though I also bought some ice cream as…
Day 121 Slept well for once and got up quite early today with my mind set on getting to town in a timely manner, though there luckily weren’t any strict time constraints like a couple of times in the past. I was off to a speedy start thanks to a smooth trail, low food supplies, and I guess, motivation. The day started with an ascent right into the clouds, which made for some interesting scenery,…
Day 120 Another day with mediocre sleep as I awoke from feeling cold despite wearing almost all my clothing while in my sleeping bag. I have an emergency blanket that I think I will try to put under my sleeping mat to see if that will reflect the heat back to me. Even though it still is quite warm by midday, as in I’m sweating while in just shorts and a shirt, the nights and…