Hello and welcome to the final entry of "Jen's Big Hike," my documentation of my attempt to hike 1700 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail.  In the end, I only did 1400 miles, but those missing 300 miles of trail were officially closed by forest fires, so I'm not taking it too hard. I'm writing from San Francisco, where I'm setting up my new apartment and getting ready to start work.  Things have changed FAST. 

The man formerly known as Lance-a-Lot finds himself in strange environs: the Emeryville Ikea

I wasn't totally sure of the best way to close out this experience.  I'm not ready to make profound declarations about how walking all-day, every-day for months changed me.  These things are true: I like to go outside every day.  I like to feel confident that I can get somewhere, relying on my own feet.  I like to carry the things I need on my back.  But I think those things have always been true.  The things that have changed?  I know more about what I can endure.  I know how I handle physical stress, and the things my body needs to keep going (packet of a gu and a podcast works every time).  I'm more attuned to my energy levels and how the things I put in my body impact them.  I'm familiar with a lot of the mental pathways my brain takes, particularly when there's not a plethora of new stimuli around.  And I recognize the creature comforts that I miss the most: connectivity to friends and family, the New York Times, and smoothies.

Lists have long helped me to organize my thoughts, and as such, I'm going to try to sum up the experience in a series of lists.  Some might be silly.  And a lot are going to be about food.  Food consumed a lot of my thoughts over the last few months.  Still does, frankly. 

Gear MVPs

1.  Marmot DriClime Windshirt.  Lightweight and warm, great for hiking and great for camp.  Heck, it's great for San Francisco.
2.  Buff.  It's a hat/headband/scarf/rag/anything piece of cloth!  Amazing for keeping my hair out of my face and keeping my head warm.
3.  JetBoil Stove.  Boils water in like 4 seconds.
4.  Osprey Exos Packs - they're light, they hold all of our gear, and they are super comfortable.  I'd wear mine to work if I could get away with it.
5.  Sleeping pad (Jen) and trekking poles (Justin).  Tie for the #5 spot.  I voted for the RidegeRest sleeping pad, because it is so simple and durable.  I've had mine since 2001, and it's still going strong.  Great if you want to have lunch but the ground is super dusty or rocky.  Great if you want to do a little yoga.  Great if you want to sleep but everything is wet.  Basically, it creates a little island of civilization wherever you unfurl it.  Justin likes the poles because they took a lot of the weight off his knees, especially going down hills. 

The Marmot Windshirt, buff, and pack

Best Gu Flavors
1.  Salted Caramel
2.  Vanilla
3.  Mandarin Orange
Honorable Mention: Cliff Shot Razz

 Best Ramen
1.  Berkeley Bowl Tom Yam
2.  Nothing else came close and we had deep regrets that we only discovered the Tom Yam in the last resupply, especially given the quantity of ramen we consumed over the previous four months. 

Favorite Bakeries
1.  Stehekin Bakery, in the North Cascades (MVP: orange twist)
2.  Schat's Bakery, located in the Eastern Sierra in both Mammoth and Bishop (MVP: old fashioned donut)

Stehekin Bakery Goodies

Best Trail Towns
1.  Bishop, CA - all around great town!  Big enough to have all the resupply needs (grocery store, gear shop, pharmacy), small enough to be walkable, touristy enough to be charming (great coffee and lunch spots), remote enough to have a real community of locals.  Bishop?  I love Bishop.  Great town.
2.  Skykomish, WA.  So, there's really nothing here: gas station, deli, hotel, post office, one restaurant.  But charming as anything!  Train runs right through town, and it's got that old west, big sky feeling.  Skykomish sadly loses points because its one restaurant was unable to feed me anything vegetarian, even when I suggested such perennial vegetarian classics as a cheese sandwich.
3.  Stehekin, WA.  Not technically much of a town.  But the deliciousness of its bakery makes up for any shortcomings.
4.  Belden, CA.  So, to be clear, we don't actually recommend this town.  But it gets points for being the kookiest, weirdest place we stopped on the trail.  We hiked right through a music festival with thumping bass and naked people.  What??

Bishop, CA

Skykomish, WA

Best Resupply Stop
1.  Kennedy Meadows.  Not really a town - just a general store with a big front porch.  But this is where we hung out for a few days, waiting for The Blister to heal and buying time before we met up with Matthew.  The grill serves pretty epic food for being in an extremely remote location (veggie burgers with homemade bbq sauce and grilled pineapple, heck yes).  Excellent place to take a bunch of zeroes. I would take my honeymoon here. 

Kennedy Meadows General Store. 

Progression of The Blister, starting top left and going clockwise

Favorite Trail Beverages
1.  "The Milkshake" - Zuko powder from Chile (I took the Patagonia Venture leftovers), chia seeds, and a pinch of salt.  You'll be real hydrated, real fast. 
2.  The lava field water source in Southern Washington.  Only water we didn't filter all summer.  That water was beautiful.
3.  Hot chocolate with whiskey, particularly Fireball.  "It really opens up the flavors and adds to the complexity."  Yes, that is what Justin said about adding Fireball to Swiss Miss.  The man is fancy. 

Best Campfire
1.  The first night it was really rainy in Washington and there were already five people in the campsite we'd picked out: bummer.  But then they got a fire started so we could dry off everything and made us hot apple cider.  Turns out it was the opposite of a bummer!
2.  The one that was questionably legal in the High Sierra (no fires above 10,000 feet, and we were probably at 10,100 feet) but that got rid of all the mosquitoes.
3.  The big one Justin made on the Cedar Creek side trail after our 30 mile day, where I burned the socks that had huge holes in them.

Not a top 3 campfire, but a good one nonetheless

Total Camp Shoes
1.  Jazzy flip flops purchased in Mojave and hiker boxed in Kennedy Meadows
2.  Mens camo crocs found in the hiker box in Kennedy Meadows, lost to the San Joaquin River in an ill-fated attempt to find some hot springs
3.  Very uncomfortable slippers from Rite Aid in Mammoth, ditched them in Tahoe
4.  Blue crocs (actual brand name: "Aaaah Comfort"), purchased in Tahoe, abandoned in Portland after a very unfortunate stepping-in-poop incident. 

Camp shoes 1: the blingiest of sandals

My friend Jay, who has hiked both the PCT and the AT, told me to "get used to walking through things for long periods of time."  Here are some things Justin and I walked through for long periods that we didn't really enjoy:
1.  Windmill farms.  Seems cool at the outset, by day 3 they have lost any charm or intrigue they once had.
2.  Burn areas.  No shade or views for hours.
3.  Blown down trees.  When your feet are killing you and your muscles are exhausted, the last thing you want is for the trail to turn into an obstacle course.
4.  Overgrown trail.  Wet bushes, prickly bushes, bushes that might be hiding a bear... in short, bushes that consume the trail = bad.
5.  Rain.  Nobody likes walking through rain.
6.  Boulder fields.  OW my feet!

Windmills for days

 

Best all around experience on the trail
1.  Donner Ski Ranch (see Breakfast Sandwich's post from mid-August)

This picture needs no caption

Songs that we never skip, no matter what:
1.  Cowboy Take Me Away (Dixie Chicks)
2.  Wagon Wheel (Old Crow Medicine Show)
3.  Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver, only song whose lyrics I know in entirety)
4.  Timber (Ke$ha.  The harmoica really just makes it)
5.  99 Problems (Jay-Z, the beat of this song was perfect for my walking cadence)

Best Campsites
1.  Evolution Lake after Muir Pass in the High Sierra, where you can see the sun sink deep into the next valley
2.  Cool rocky cavern between Kennedy Meadows and Horseshoe Meadows.  It felt like a house!
3.  High altitude camp by Selden Pass: got to hang out with tons of marmots the next morning!
4.  Front country campsite where we stayed with Breakfast Sandwich.  Despite our earnest efforts, we could not figure out how to pay for the site or for the firewood we used. Thanks, California State Park system!

Evolution Lake

The Cavern

Morning marmot hang!

Gear Unsung Heroes
1.  Trowel.  I don't believe I need to elaborate.
2.  Garbage bags: I had one from a picnic at Wharton, Justin had one from Alaska Airlines.  These humble trash bags kept us and our packs dry under numerous circumstances.
3.  Sewing kit from my father.  Used the scissors to trim Justin's mustache and the needle and thread to lance and stitch blisters, patch shoes, and repair rain pants.
4.  Loksak brand dry bags, aka "valuables bags."  Far sturdier than a ziplock bag, but virtually the same weight.  These bags kept iphones, kindles, wallets, maps, and anything else of value dry.  We each used one bag through the whole season, and they're still going strong (mine now holds pens on a bookshelf).
5.  Jackery mobile battery charger.  Kept our phones charged all summer long!

Books I read on the trail and their one-sentence reviews
1.  One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer.  Highly recommend!
2.  A Visit from the Good Squad.  Compelling, but a little disjointed.
3.  Two Lifestyles, One Lifetime.  The memoir of my favorite yoga instructor, Les Leventhal.  I had no idea he used to be a meth-addicted porn star.  But now I know all about it.
4.  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  A must-read.
5.  The Donner Party: The Tragic Story of the Wild West's Most Notorious Journey.  Only recommended if you are going over Donner Pass and are curious. 
6.  Lone Wolf.  I recommend this only if you are a teenaged wolf enthusiast (Breakfast Sandwich, that means you). 
7.  Behind the Beautiful Forevers.  My favorite book of the summer
8.  Unorthodox.  Interesting memoir of a girl who grew up in - and ultimately ran from - an Hasidic community in Brooklyn.
9.  The Goldfinch.  I found this book to be a real page-turner, but ultimately disappointing.  Get it together, Theo.
10.  Bossypants.  The best part is when Tina Fey details her decision to play Sarah Palin on SNL.  Such fond memories of 2008.
11.  The Trail Life: How I Loved It, Hated It, and Learned From It.  Memoir of some PCT hikers.  Fun to read about others' experience on the same trail, though stressful when they talked about conquering the Sierra in 8 days.
12.  Sisterhood Everlasting.  I read this by accident, not knowing it was the adult sequel to the "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series.  I don't recommend it.  Very dark.
13.  Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.  Very quick and fascinating read.
14.  Bringing up Bebe.  About a new mom who raises her kids in France and learns a lot from the French style of parenting.  Not sure I needed to know that much about French childrearing, but I enjoyed thinking about how it's different than American style early childhood education.
15.  Water for Elephants.  This is a crazy soap opera of a book that takes place on a Depression era circus.  Weird. 

People who were not worried about my safety
1.  My Dad
2.  My brothers

Does it look like this man worries? 

 
People who were very, very worried about my safety
1. My Mom

She worries.  A lot. 

Finally, some thank yous
1. My Mom, who did endless post office trips for me, started thinking about rescue helicopters when the SPOT message didn't come through, and snuck a bag of Twizzlers into each resupply box. 
2.  Fairy Godmother Aunt Margaret, who managed resupplies for a month, while Mom was travelin'
3.  Jay, Ginny, Emily, and Barrel Roll - for sharing thru hiker expertise, care packages, and even a bear canister.  
4.  Timmy C., Matthew, and Lindsay, for joining this adventure - the weeks with you all were the highlights of the trip! 
4.  And a very, very special thanks to Jutsin aka Lance-A-Lot, who originally planned to hike with me for 2 weeks, and instead came for 1100 miles.  Justin: thank you for letting me listen to podcasts on your phone when I got cranky, for making campfires even when we weren't totally sure of the campfire regulations, and for always giving me for the first Shotblock. 

I'm not sure why I picked this as the summary picture of the trip, but it feels right.  THANK YOU to everyone who made this big adventure possible!! 

White Pass to the Bridge of the Gods: FINAL SECTION!

Hello from Portland, OR! We just finished the last section of Washington, and just like that, I am officially done with my hiking adventure for the summer! I'm going to use this post to reflect on the last week of hiking and then do a final post in a few days when I've had a bit more time to reflect on the experience. But for now, I'm writing from the lobby of a lovely hotel, wearing an outfit I bought at Target, and am happily full on a Vietnamese food truck lunch extravaganza. In the words of my former students, I'm "brand new."

This last section was 148 miles, from White Pass, WA to Cascade Locks, OR. It starts with the Goat Rocks Wilderness, touted as one of the highlights of the trail. And it ends with a walk over the Bridge of the Gods, a historic bridge over the Columbia River gorge. Note: historic bridges don't include many amenities, like, for example, a sidewalk.

The weather forecast was mixed for this section - cloudy, two days of rain, then sun. The goat rocks includes a ~5 mile section of trail known as "The Knife's Edge," known as such because you walk on top of a ridge with steep drop-offs on both sides. We were pretty eager to do the Knife's Edge when it was sunny, or at least just not-rainy. I was also pretty eager for my mom to not know about the knife's edge until after we'd survived it. It's like when my brother Tim backpacked around Pakistan but told mom he was going camping on Vermont. Sometimes you just have to help her not worry. We hustled out of White Pass and got to the base of the Knife's Edge around 5 pm. We started steeply climbing and met two girls who had just come down it. They recommended we wait until morning, since the wind was starting to pick up and we definitely didn't want to be battling darkness. That made great sense, so wait we did. We found an awesome campsite, took a pre-dinner nap, had a multi course meal, and then finally sent out the Spot message to mom. Changes in routine worry her, and arriving at camp 3 hours early qualifies as a change. As I said, sometimes you have to help her not worry.

The next morning, we lucked out weather-wise. It was cloudy, but no rain! To the knife's edge!! It was a little sketchy at points, but not as bad as some hikers had made it seem. It helped that, because we're heading south, a lot of the scariest parts were uphill for us, which is inherently less scary than downhill, where you're worried your momentum will have a negative reaction with gravity and you'll be careening off the side of a cliff before you know it. The views of Mt Rainier and Mt Adams were awesome, we got to walk across a glacier (first real snow of the trip), and we saw old friend 'Merica! This was especially great because we'd been debating exactly what his tattoo says since we last saw him on Kearsarge Pass in July. He was able to clear that up for us. 'Merica is a former Marine who has done the whole trail in a red, white, and blue tank top and short shorts, which make him a bit of a trail heartthrob. We were glad to find him unchanged.

On our way down from the knife's edge, we met a DC park ranger, who works at the Lincoln Memorial and is out in WA on vacation. He's a former AT thru hiker who was excited to meet some fellow long-distance backpackers. He told us that he cried when he finished the AT, and told us that going forward, we'd really hold this experience in our hearts. Some people just have the best energy.

The next day rained and included a slightly hairy river crossing. We camped that night next to a professional windsurfer who has done the PCT three times. I would like his life, please. Fortunately the sun came out the next day, so Justin and I had a leisurely morning in camp, drying out our gear and enjoying a hot chocolate. When we finally left at 10:30, the windsurfer (who was just starting to take down his tent) commented that "it was great to finally meet some chill thru hikers who don't leave at the crack of dawn." While this compliment seemed a little backhanded, we seized the opportunity to explain the finer points of difference between a thru-hiker and a thru-hanger.

While we weren't epic thru hikers that day, all that changed on Saturday. We woke up at 5:45 am, broke camp in the dark, and banged out 30 miles by sundown. This included the illustrious "10by10," or ten miles completed by ten a.m. (10:03 in our case). Why did we do this, you ask? Simply because we hadn't yet. Lots of hikers post huge mileage in Oregon, where the trail is relatively flat and the tread is gentle. Having skipped OR, we didn't have any big mileage days to boast about - our previous record had been 27. But not no more. On September 20th, we logged 30 miles. Count it.

During the 30 miler, we met a group of locals out for a day hike. They were wonderful people, who took our trash out for us and insisted we take their watermelon jolly ranchers. The kindness that hikers experience is just humbling sometimes.

The trail continued to be gentle for the next day, only to remind us of what it's made of on Monday. Rugged, rocky trail, with prickly bushes on both sides, and 5,000 feet of elevation gain (and a corresponding 5k of elevation loss). There was also an 11 mile dry stretch that we messed up, so we didn't have any water for 7 miles. We went out with a bang. The last night sleeping in the tent was bittersweet. I'm not going to miss the claustrophobia and the occasional sleeping on slopes and sharp rocks. But making your home under the stars is pretty magical.

On Tuesday, we had 9.74 final miles to go. Amazing to think that I used to consider ~10 miles to be a "big day," and now it's just a little something to bang out before town. The hiking was weirdly annoying still - thorny bushes, the return of poison oak plants along the trail, and lots of boulder fields. It was also a weird transition back to the populated world. We could see a dam and power plant on the Columbia River for much of the hike, and we had our snack break (final gu! Final fruit leather! Final soy jerky!) on a pipeline. We passed by a few houses, and then just like that, the trail dumped us out on a busy road with a sign saying "Bridge of the Gods, next right." So we did what we do best: took a bunch of pictures, then kept walking.

Bridge of the Gods was awesome, when I wasn't fearing for my life. Imagine a busy 2-lane highway, going over an old bridge where you can see through the structure to the water below, and no sidewalk. Fortunately cars gave us a wide berth. It might have been our smell.

When we got to the end of the bridge, the final trail magic started. Pedestrians are supposed to pay a toll, but the woman glanced at is and announced "if you're doing the trail, you don't pay." She then directed us to the East Wind drive thru, where all thru hikers, Cheryl Strayed included, stop for ice cream. Sent a final Spot message from the diner, then hitched into Hood Rover. Got a ride with two super friendly Moms, who not only drove us, but also gave us a tour of the town, including all of the breweries. They stopped a guy on the street ("he looks young and cool, he'll know where to go!") to get a lunch rec for us - Moms are the best. Lunch was amazing and the beers were free, as a congrats gesture. Our waiter also said he was going into Portland tomorrow, if we wanted a free ride. Heck yes we did. We then checked into the local hotel, where the check-in guy explained that he probably wasn't going to fill up tonight, so did we want a free upgrade to a suite? It was more space than we knew what to do with - I'd estimate our tent would fit inside maybe 30 times - and it was awesome. Maybe being off-trail won't be so bad after all.

Now we're in Portland. We ate our faces off at some food trucks yesterday and today are going to see a matinee at an independent movie theater about "The Camino," Spain's 30-day pilgrimage hike. I guess I shouldn't let the Spot get dusty.

Going to write a more thoughtful summary of the adventure in the next few days. But now, I'm off to enjoy my 3rd shower in 24 hours.

Captions:
1. The Knife's Edge
2. Yoga on an ice field
3. Huge cairn with Mt Rainier in the background
4. Big herd of goats, for which goat rocks wilderness is named
5. Reading an HBR article that the Wharton leadership office sent me at White Pass. That article was later very helpful as we used the reverse sides to make a hitchhiking sign.
6. Rainy day.
7. Rainy day river crossing - small streams get treacherous in the rain.
8. Fall colors!
9. Dr. Lance-a-lot, doing his thing. Still dealing with blisters in the final days.
10. Cool bridge
11. Cool sky
12. Camp on the last morning. Note: we ceased doing bear hangs a few weeks ago. Now, we do a "mouse hang." If a bear wants our food, s/he is welcome to it. But stay away nice!
13. Final on-trail water source. We're back to faucets now...
14. Final trailhead
15. Justin going over the Bridge of the Gods. Scary!!
16. Hard-earned ice cream.
17. First meal out. YUM.

Snoqualmie to White Pass: Friends and Elks (elk?)

Let's start this blog post out with the low point of the last six days. I accidentally stepped on a baby frog who was crossing the trail. I think it died. This put me in a funk for approximately 24 hours. Something about slow-motion roadkill is particularly traumatic. Especially for this vegetarian. Fortunately, Justin had stashed a bag of my favorite Trader Joe's mango passion fruit gummies for just such a moment. Eating 700 calories worth of them, in one sitting, eased the pain a bit.

We just finished a 99 mile section, from Snoqualmie Pass to White Pass. It's our first stop in Washington that doesn't start with the letter S! It's also our last official resupply stop. We are doing 148 miles from here to Cascade Locks (the WA-OR border), and then we are ... done! It's kind of hard to wrap my head around. The trail has been my "home" for almost 4 months now. There will be nice things about returning to civilization: sleeping in a bed, getting water whenever I want (and not having to filter it!), and being able to talk with friends and family at the click of a button. But there will be hard things too. I will miss the inevitable moment every day (every hour!) where I gasp at how beautiful something is. I will miss the simplicity of having everything I need on my back. I will miss drinking hot chocolate and watching the stars come out. And I will miss the deeply-held belief that around every corner, there is a bear just waiting to say hello (I've walked 1200 miles through prime bear country and so far seen not a single bear). It's going to be a transition, to say the least.

This section was beautiful. The trail has been significantly easier since we left Snoqualmie - flatter and less rocky. And we've had unbelievable views of Mt Rainier for days! While the trees are all evergreens, many of the smaller bushes and shrubs are turning red and yellow, making it really feel like fall. Also making it feel like fall: the temperatures by night. It has been so, so cold!! We talked to some guys with a thermometer, who said it was in the 20s in the valleys, so had probably been in the teens up in the mountains where we were! I've been sleeping in every layer I own, including my down jacket. Brrrr. But the days have been sunny and perfect. Giveth and taketh away.

Another highlight of this section has been seeing so many friends! Over the last 3-4 days, we've crossed paths (literally, haha) with so many of the folks with whom we hiked north through California. We were especially excited to see Half Step, SloMo, Two Feathers, Pippin, Hobo, and Milkshake. Hopefully we will see Snake Charmer in the next day or so! We were glad to give Half Step the intel on the Stehekin Bakery, as he has been craving cinnamon rolls for the whole trail. It's going to be a dream come true for him. Two Feathers continues to be a fount of positivity - as she has been, since we first met her on the windiest night in the desert! And we were so glad to see SloMo closing in on the finish! He is doing the trail in honor of his adult son, who passed away while on a cross country bike trip. Our mileage has been low the last few days, as we've been having so much fun talking with everyone!

The other big thing of note for this section is that it is elk hunting season, so the trail is currently a mix of thru hikers (distinguishable by their beards and dirty clothes) and bow hunters (distinguishable by the massive bows they carry around). Justin and I had lunch with a big group of them one day - and let me tell you, they did not modify their word choice or topic range, despite there being a lady present. Fortunately, I've got brothers, so I wasn't entirely horrified. Shortly thereafter, we saw a big male elk on the trail. We warned him to stay hidden in the woods! Maybe that warning evens out for the baby frog in a karmic sense.

A final note: I listened to a "Dirtbag Diaries" podcast called "Moms have it the hardest." It was a really sweet conversation between a professional climber and his mom. The son really understood how dangerous his lifestyle was and how hard that was for his mom. So on that note: thank you, mom!! You've almost made it!! Eight more SPOT check-ins and you're done!!

Captions:
1. Huge mushroom!
2. As I said, I sleep in all my layers. The rice crispy treats were a nightly ritual/treat in this section. Thank you, Emily!!
3 & 4. But the days were beautiful.
5. Trail magic! Cooler with beers right on the trail.
6. Slo Mo!
7. Two Feathers! (She's also a RN who helped me cure "The Blister" back in the desert. Thank you, Two Feathers!!)
8. Half Step. Very first person we met on the trail, back on June 5.
9. The scene in the tent: my pillow (the north face stuff sack) and bedside table (the ziplock with my kindle and maps).
10. It may sound all awesome and wilderness-y. But the reality is that sometimes we are just camping in a parking lot.
11-13. Beautiful views, especially of Rainier!!

Skykomish to Snoqualmie: Sunshine Daydream

Hello from Snoqualmie Pass, Washington! You may be wondering, isn't that where you and Justin were last time? The answer is no, Washington just has a lot of trail towns with long-S words (Stehekin, Skykomish, Snoqualmie have been the last three). I last wrote in Skykomish, which we left on Friday. Fladhback to then: we had to fend off people offering to give us rides back to the trail, since we really wanted to hit the deli for breakfast before we hiked. Washington is a ridiculously friendly place to hitch. Finally we got our sandwiches and lo and behold, there was Jerry Dinsmore pulled up outside, waiting to drive us. The Dinsmores are a famous pct trail angel family, who host many of the hikers who come through WA. We didn't stay with them because we were soaking, freezing, and couldn't stand the idea of potentially having to camp in anyone's backyard for even one night, free and generous as the offer was. But we were thrilled to meet Jerry and experience a little trail magic in the form of a ride to the trail without even needing to stick out a thumb! Jerry's truck had three stickers on the rear window: PCT, Pacific Crest Trail Association (the org that does advocacy and policy for the trail), and one that read "Hiker Trash." His custom license plate reads "PCT DAD" and his wife's reads "PCT MOM." We hugged when he dropped us off and he gave us a hard time for being too fancy to stay with him. We probably deserved that. 

The next 3.5 days of hiking were simply amazing!! The weather was perfect and the views epic. It was such a huge change from the previous section. We had views of snow covered peaks! We walked by beautiful alpine lakes! We looked across sweeping valleys! It got us wondering what incredible views we'd missed in the previous section, when all we saw was clouds (which we were socked in) and rain (don't want to talk about it). 

There were three highlights of this section: running into Lady Mac & Gourmet, the Goldmyer Hot Springs, and the jets. I'll start with the jets. Pretty simple: two Air Force jets flew right over us. We've seen a lot of military planes this summer (in a lot of places, we don't see any commercial flights - except when we were along the flight paths to LA and later SF - so most planes are military). But these two jets were so low and flying so fast! One of them came into the valley sideways! My dad (proud Air Force vet) has a license plate holder that says: "jet noise, the sound of freedom." Damn straight, dad. 

Next highlight was running into Lady Mac and Gourmet! LM and G are a couple from Hawaii. We met them our first day on the trail (June 5!), and saw them thought the desert and the Sierra. They are awesome and taught us many important things, including how to thread blisters and tips on trail vegetarianism. However, everyone scattered a bit with the fires - some people skipped ahead to Ashland, some like us flip flopped, others quit altogether - so we weren't sure we'd ever see them again. So we were thrilled to run into them again while they were filtering water and we were deep in a hiking/podcast trance. Hopefully next time we see them will be on a visit to the Big Island!

Finally, we hit up the Goldmyer Hot Springs! They are off on a side trail from the PCT, and are totally worth it! Most beautiful hot springs I've ever seen. Very lovely place to spend  a morning, soaking our tired muscles.  Unfortunately, they are only accessible via the PCT, so you've gotta earn it. 

From there, we hiked to the trailhead and were dismayed to learn that that the trail dumps you out on the road 2 miles before the hotel. I hate road walking and I especially hate closing the day with a road walk, because walking on asphalt really hurts when you've already logged a bunch of miles. But then a car drove by! We stuck out our thumbs and the car stopped! Well, actually that car drove by. But the next car stopped! It was two incoming University of Washington freshman, who we'd spoken to on the trail earlier - they'd been out for a day hike. As we sat in their backseat, they confessed to having unsuccessfully tried hitchhiking once. "So, ummm, can you actually get around that way?" they asked us. Response: "well, we are sitting in your car right now. So... Yeah."

Snoqualmie has treated us right so far. We picked up our resupply boxes and two care packages (thanks, Emily L. and Jenny T!!) from the local Chevron, where the staff stores them in a walk-in beer fridge. Seriously. The evidence is below. And then the guy who runs the food truck in the Chevron parking lot offered us free beers! Honestly, it's going to be hard to get back on the trail tomorrow. 250 more miles in Washington and in our adventure overall! Already nostalgic (and sad for the imminent days when 1,000 calorie afternoon snacks - which both Justin and I did on Saturday - will no longer be acceptable). 

**Update from Snoqualmie, here on the morning of the 9th. It's raining and cold out, but supposed to be sunny by tomorrow. Having learned our lesson (WA is awesome in the sun, less so otherwise), we're going to hunker down here for another day. Staying in hotels for multiple nights (on no salary) gets unreasonable though, so I struck a deal with Justin: we can only stay tonight if, rather than eating meals at the mediocre attached restaurant, I will instead cook us camping food in our hotel room, using our camp stove. (This should be a familiar scene to my Patagonia friends, for whom I once prepared a delicious spaghetti dinner - and nearly asphyxiated - in the bathroom of a very classy Chilean hotel.) Ramen is on the menu tonight, if you want to stop by!

Captions:

1. Jerry Dinsmore's car. We hikers are so lucky to have dedicated trail angels like Jerry and his wife!

2. & 3. The awesome vistas we'd missed in the rain. Turns out Washington is really beautiful!

4. One of the many slightly sketchy creek/ravine crossings we do daily.

5. Reunited with Lady Mac and Gourmet!

6. Lake Ivanhoe did not disappoint. Awesome lunch spot. 

7 & 8. Goldmyer Hot Springs. Prettiest natural hot springs I'd ever seen (and Matthew has dragged me to quite a few). 

9. Getting to be fall up in here!

10. The scene inside the beer fridge in the Chevron. 

11. From outside the beer fridge.