August 30th, 2022 by Jon
We woke and felt the weight of illness. We both felt hot, tired, and achy. Kind of like the feeling when you’re getting over something, but exhausted afterward. We slept in until 6:45, then slowly packed and ate breakfast, not hitting the trail until 7:45. We planned to walk and see how we felt; whatever miles we did would be enough. We continued walking through the burned section, climbing up and over the top of a ridge before beginning a long descent. There were some cool views from exposed ridges along the way, and eventually we came to a small stream. We took our first break there, having gone about 5 miles and filled our water bottles for the next 10 miles until our next planned water source. We have slowed our pace a bit, but we actually feel a bit better now that we are up and walking.
After we got moving again, we descended along the mountainside. We entered a healthy, unburnt forest again and enjoyed the cool and quiet of it all. There was a peace to the morning, and perhaps with the fact that we weren’t upset to be slowing down. We are pretty sure we can keep up enough miles to still get into town on Thursday, so it’s all going to be fine. The trees here were old, and it felt nice to walk on the soft pine duff covering the trail. We came to the bottom of the descent, then immediately climbed up, over, and down another small ridge before coming to a large meadow. At the edge of it, near where the PCT goes, we passed by a log cabin that the local snowmobile club built and maintains. We saw a family hanging out there, but we headed on.
We crossed a dirt road and went up the trail a bit before stopping in a small clearing off to the side of the trail to eat some lunch. The cheese and summer sausage wraps have been totally awesome in this section. We took a pretty long lunch; we both felt the weight of the day. But we had managed to go 10.5 miles, so that felt pretty good. Afterward, we continued along a relatively flat trail, then a long, gentle ascent, before coming to a small stream that bubbled out of the side of the hill. We stayed there for a while and took another break to fill up with water. This is the last source for about 12 miles, and so we filled up with plenty since we knew we would need to dry camp before then.
We left that water spot and continued along the ledge we had been walking on. We wandered through a more peaceful forest and then climbed up and down a few very steep ridges before coming to the road that we agreed to start looking for campsites. We took yet another break, then headed out on the trail. After about half a mile, we came to a small saddle between two mountains, with a flat spot large enough for 4 or 5 tents. It was only 5:30, and we only went 19 miles, but we were ready to call it. So we did. We set up camp and then spent an hour and a half just eating, leaning against trees as the evening sun warmed our skin. We finished the evening with hot chocolate and tea before getting into our tent by 7:00, planning to get some really good sleep tonight. We have another 37 miles to get to Snoqualmie in two days, which is totally doable. Hopefully, we will feel a bit better tomorrow.
