Day 146: Thank You Lauren and Siuattle River

September 12, Day 146: 2518.8-2544.2

Miles Hiked: 25.4

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for Lauren “Catch” Braithwaite. I’ve gotten the chance to hike with Catch a huge portion of the trail, she is kind and inspiring, reuniting just yesterday was amazing and I’m so happy that we’re going to get to finish the trail together. 

I woke up this morning to Navi’s alarm going off at 6am. It rained off and on during night so everything is wet again, so another day starting off with wet gear.  I packed up but it still took me until 7:20 to start hiking down the trail. The plan is to hike 25 miles today. The elevation for that mileage is 3500 feet up and 7000 feet down… geez!  I feel like a 25 mile day in Washington feels just like a 35 mile day in Oregon. The elevation is just so severe. It may sound nice to have a ton of downhill but it’s brutal and hard on the knees. But first to start the day was a nice warm up with some uphill elevation. One of the other annoying things with the trail here in northern Washington is the trail is more of a “side hilling” where the tread of the trail is probably a foot wide that’s slanted down the hill with roots and rocks hidden in the brushes that grow over the trail. That’s before you add in all the tree blow downs across the trail that you have to crawl over, under or around. It didn’t help that the clouds had socked the entire area in and it was drizzling and there wasn’t views to be had all morning.

By lunch time though, I stopped and there was a break in the clouds and rain. I laid everything out in the cold wind to dry while I layer my clothes and ate lunch. Next up was a brutal down hill to the Siuattle River in a deep valley. It was basically 10 miles downhill with my guess 300 blow downs, some were ancient cider trees that even laying down were taller than me.

I crossed the Siuattle River on the pedestrian bridge and made the 2.7 miles climb up to camp. I met a guy named Mad Moody, he hiked the trail in 1977!  I asked him how many people hiked it his year, 24!  He’s basically a legend, he knows Eric Ryback (one of the first people to write a book about the PCT) and the guy who started the Kelty backpack company. He was kind enough to share some stories with me as I set up camp next to him.  This is the amazing thing about the trail, you never who you may meet.