Total: 369.3
Woke up to a beautiful sunrise on the top of the ridge, which was short lived as we headed uphill for 10 miles. I made it up by lunch after maybe 3 breaks, which means things went a lot better than the last big hill. I tried my first cliff bar smothered in peanut butter and I’ll never eat it any other way. For your next big hill climb: Don’t stop me now. After we got to the top it was more casual up and down terrain, which actually kind of bored me, so I put on a podcast. Some of the trails are not flat, meaning they are kind of sloped to the left or right which has been causing more blisters on the inside of my heels. The best part about climbing above 7000 ft is the pines we get to walk through. Lots of pictures and videos were taken. We walked past a ski slope today called Mt. High East - Yetis Snow Park. I was even able to sit on the last ski chair. When we reached the parking lot, there was a group waiting to drive hikers to the Bud Pharm, where they allow hikers to camp on a donation bases. We stopped at the market first where we got our free PCT hot dogs and then had deli sandwiches at the grocery store. The grocery store also had free goodies like beef jerky and fruit bars. Then we called the Bud Pharm shuttle to take us to camp, which was $20 per carload split 5 ways. We set up our tents and plugged in our electronics. Now we’ve been sitting around the wood stove all night. So the bud in Bud Pharm means this is a weed farm and everyone is of course passing blunts and bongs around. There are lots of dogs and cats floating around, and even a donkey! Now they are passing our burgers and chips served on plates made out of ripped up beer boxes. Feels like a very chill college party. But Krista is eating a very pink burger right now so wish her luck.
Town days are starting to stress me out more than get me excited now. While hiking, we just have to worry about filtering water and hiking to the next campsite. Before we get into town, we have to figure out how to get there, where to stay, laundry, showering, charging electronics, resupply, and then getting back to trail within 24 hours. Sometime those are all in complete separate parts of town. I hope it will get easier as we do it more and more. It would probably ease a lot of my trouble if I didn’t have 9 things to charge. As I write this they just introduced a plate full of warm chocolate chip cookies and are trying to figure out how to start beer pong. Anyway, I feel a lot better now that we are here and I got my stuff plugged in. We plan on sleeping dirty once more and doing laundry tomorrow morning. Then we should be able to resupply and head out in the afternoon. That means, you guessed it, a very short nero after town day.
I keep having to add more stuff because it keeps getting crazier. First the animals keep drinking out of the fish tank. That’s just funny actually. Then someone offered Krista and me back massages. That’s not crazy that was just glorious. He told me he can tell I carry most of my weight in the middle of my back and I need to move some of my stuff around to try to get my food in the middle of my pack instead of the top. Another man just preached to us about who knows what for 10 minutes. Less helpful. People keep offering to do shakedowns for me, but I know I would just fight them on everything. Maybe my back would thank me for getting rid of one of my five pairs of socks or 4 pairs of underwear. I know that sounds bad and I will get rid of some. Soon.
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