July 21st, 2020
Mile 158 to Mile 178.7
I’m almost back at Steven’s Pass and Highway 2!!!!!! And I walked here from Canada!! It’s been crazy watching my little location dot move closer and closer to home every day. Now I’m just 10 miles from the highway!
We got up and rolled out around 7:15 this morning. Sherp followed me through the snow, which there was still a lot of. We passed a backpacker in his tent with no fly so we could see him sleeping in there lol. We were on a ridgeline most of the morning and had a great view of the Cascades.
We eventually got off some of the snow and started going down in elevation. We had a quick break at a stream and Sherp decided she wanted to walk 30 miles to finish the section today and get to Leavenworth. I had 0 desire to even entertain this idea. I knew it would require hiking until at least 11pm.
We climbed back up after the break and hit an unfortunate amount of snow. I thought I’d be able to go a bit faster today but the snow is truly never ending. I did decide that I want to go home though. I need a shower and a day off so bad. The thought of pushing straight through and beginning the next section sounds like the worst thing in the world. I texted Matt and he’s able to drop me off Friday morning before work plus I’ll get to spend tomorrow with my mom on her birthday!!! (She is an angel for driving out to come get me on her birthday.)
Sherp and I had lunch around 2pm and I hung back to dig a cat hole while she went ahead. When I found her, she was with a guy who was out backpacking. Turns out, it was her boyfriend who had hiked out 20 miles on the PCT to meet up with her! She had been rushing all day to see him, so it was perfect! I let them go off without me and proceeded to leapfrog with them until we all got to camp.
While hiking alone, there was of course more snow. I ran into a sketchy bit near some trees. I ended up slipping for the first time and falling into the trees. It was a short slip, and I made it away with only a minor scratch down my leg.
Afterwards, I summited my first mountain of the PCT: Grizzly Peak. The trail mostly winds around ridges and goes over the lowest part of passes, so getting to the peak of a mountain is rare. I also took a long break in a meadow full of wildflowers where I for some reason decided to clip all 20 of my nails??
My feet were very tired today and I was dying on the last few miles downhill to camp. I’m at Lake Janus, which is 5 miles north of Lake Valhalla and 10 miles north of the highway. I think calling this a lake is kind of generous though. Bog would be more accurate. I tried to get water from the lake but saw two frogs and got weirded out by the idea of drinking frog water so I walked a bit further to a stream. At least that water was moving, but definitely not the crystal clear mountain water I’ve gotten so used to.
I had my first successful ramen bomb for dinner, which is a popular thruhiker meal consisting of instant noodles and instant mashed potatoes. The first time I tried I put too much potato and it got way too thick but this time I got the consistency right!
Tomorrow I’m meeting mom at 11:30ish so I think I’ll have to leave here a bit earlier than usual. Maybe around 6 or 6:30am. I’M SO EXCITED FOR A SHOWER AND TO SEE MY PARENTS AND MATT!!!!!