August 7th, 2020
Mile 470.5 to Mile 494.2
LAST NIGHT ON TRAIL!!! I can’t even believe it. It feels like tomorrow is just another resupply day and I’ll be on my way again. I cant believe I get to go home and relax and not walk 20 miles a day!! I’m excited for the relaxin’ but definitely sad to be leaving trail. I’ve fallen into a good rhythm and really enjoy my time out here. It will be really nice to be around friends and family again though.
I was in the forest for most of today. I filled up on water and started with a climb. I got to this weird section that must be between two pieces of private property but there were a ton of “No Trespassing” signs on either side of the trail. A little spooky. I got out to a funny little grassy field and then popped out on a road. There were quite a few dirt road crossings today and a couple times it was hard to find the trail on the other side.
More climbing, more forest. I eventually came down and about halfway through the day I stopped at a creek for lunch. I had my favorite smoothie and some tortilla and cheese. A NOBO hiker stopped by and asked me a bunch of questions about the upcoming trail. It seems like none of the SOBOs ahead of me are stopping to talk to people because I’ve been answering a lot of questions from NOBOs. But this man said that all throughout Oregon he only saw three other thruhikers on trail. Talk about quiet. It’s been cool to pass NOBOs these past few days because we’re all near the relative end of our trips. But they have 400-500 miles to go and I have 10. Hah.
The last part of the day hit me with an unexpected climb. It kicked my butt if I’m being totally honest. But from the top I could see Adams, St Helens, and the tip of Rainier. It’s crazy to look at those volcanoes and how far away they are and realize I WALKED from there.
There was a bit more climbing. Washington definitely did not let me have a last easy day. It kicked my butt one last time. But I went through a logged section that was very bizarre. All the leftover timber had been rolled into these kind of piles on the mountain side. (Note: later found out from Kaitie B that these are burn piles made of any remaining lumber that wasn’t usable. They need to be burned so they don’t hinder the forest’s regrowth.)
My left calf was very tight for the latter half of today and I just wanted to make it to camp. I ended up camping about 1.5 miles sooner than planned. The downside is there is no water here and I was unprepared to dry camp. I have about 750mL to get me through to the next water source tomorrow. The brightside is that I saw a bit of a sunset from up here, I have a cute spot nestled in some trees, there’s a couple camping nearby, and it’s all downhill tomorrow.
I sent some texts to Emma and Matt and made some dinner. I actually packed a perfect amount of food for this section. I’m down to one days worth. Hopefully it’s not too windy tonight. Going to try to actually get going by 7 tomorrow.