Japan day 1 Barely had I left the airport before I was there only foreigner and surrounded by signs and messages written in characters that I couldn’t even read. I had stepped onto Japanese soil here in Tokyo. Or soil is probably not the right thing to say as everything is kept so meticulously clean. This eighteen day trip is quite a different endeavor from my time on the Pacific Crest Trail. For one,…
SPOILER ALERT: This is the last chapter in my PCT thru-hike diary, so there are some pretty major spoilers ahead. You might instead want to start from the beginning. Day 139 It rained more or less all night, which was a first, but everything stayed nicely dry in my tent. Nice to know that the tent you’ve been carrying for almost half a year actually works. He he. When I awoke in the early morning, the…
Day 138 This morning was like the two preceding it. No better. No worse. So let’s not waste more words on that. It was quite cold getting out of my sleeping bag and I was only just able to keep warm while wearing most of my clothes in the darkness of the early morning. No thunderstorms nor rain or snow that night, though. I went back a bit to get back to the trail and…
Day 137 Yesterday I mentioned that if things turned out well today I would be camping in the vicinity of Hearts Pass. That would put me in a position where the distance to Rainy Pass, where I camped yesterday, and Manning Park in Canada were comparable. Thus it would be as easy to push ahead as it would be to backtrack if something bad happened as the road to Hearts pass was closed. Thus, today…
Day 136 As I’ve done the last couple of days, I woke up an hour or two past midnight possibly because of the pain in my hip region. This time, though, the pain wasn’t as bad as the previous days, which was reassuring. It took me quite some time to fall back asleep, though. One reason for that being that half past three am a car playing loud music pulled over somewhere near where I…
Day 135 I had packed up most of my stuff, so when I woke up I was almost ready to hit the trail. I still had bad pain in the morning, but it was even quicker to subside than yesterday. I went to the hiker box and dropped off the food that I didn’t need, then I bought a ticket for the red bus to High Bridge. I met Hardcore at the Landing. I had…
Day 134 Another painful morning, but this time the pain was quicker to subside. The sky was grey, like yesterday. Not from skies but from the smoke having returned. I didn’t care much for that, though. As for how many days of rest I should take, it is also a balance against getting to Canada before the cold, rain and snow starts. Ideally, that should be before mid September, so I could wait some more…
Day 133 It feels like I have already spent quite some time in Stehekin. There was the day that I got here, the nero day where I did nine or so miles, the first complete zero day, and now this, the second zero day in Stehekin. Based on the pain I felt this morning it didn’t seem like there was much improvement, unfortunately. Today the post office finally opened again, so went there to get…
Day 132 When you are injured and uncertain as to whether you will be able to get back on trail within a reasonable time frame, you are playing “the waiting game”. Should you give up your hike or should you hang around in whatever town you are at in hopes of things getting better at the cost of time and money? I’m playing that game right now. With the way I felt this morning, I…
Day 131 Slept wonderfully, woke up, and packed down camp in terrible pain, had pancakes for breakfast at the restaurant where I dined last night, and bought internet access at the store next door. Well, well, well, the rumors about the reopening of the trail were mostly true. The PCT was not just reopened in its entirety. In Denmark we’d say “the trees doesn’t grow into the skies” or “the piano doesn’t play THAT well”.…