Day 136

Trail miles: 18.6

Side trail miles: 0.5

Total: 2295.9

We woke up in a cloud of fog. It was the first time in a while when my tent and sleeping bag were soaked. I started off wearing all of my clothes because it was so cold. I slept ok, but I could have been warmer for sure. We started off immediately with an icy snow traverse. We made it over fine, but using microspikes would have been nice. Or doing it in the afternoon when it’s slushy. Near the top of the hill, there was a junction for the stock PCT route and the old PCT route. We read in the comments that the high route had no snow and better views, so up we went. We immediately loved our choice because we could see above the fog! Rainer peeked out too. The section of trail was called Knife Edge because we were basically stratling the ridge line. I wish the for the sake of my warm and the views that the fog would have burned off, but we couldn’t see anything once we went lower. It was still pretty cool to do. After a while, we did make it back into beautiful meadow views. We stopped only 4 miles in on the top of a hill because I needed to recover from the mental strain of the weather and Knifes Edge trail. All we had standing in our way of town was a 3.5 mile hill. At the top we had perfect views of Mt Rainer! Still no goats though. Town wasn’t more than a gas station a half mile from the PCT. They did have laundry and showers, and accepted packages. I picked up mine so I didn’t have to worry about resupply at all. We were too late for laundry because too many people had already signed up today. I did end up getting the last shower today, which was nice since I haven’t taken one in about 9 days now. Still dirty clothes. I tried some sink laundry, but no matter how many times I rinse, the runoff is still dark brown. And now I’m going to have to put on wet clothes tomorrow in the cold morning. I think I will try to put my rain jacket on under my shirt? We’ll see. The food hit the spot even though it was just fries and chicken tenders and pop (sorry mom, I know I’m messing up my stomach). It’s a battle for the charging ports in the back of the gas station. I’ve been protecting my stuff for hours just in case someone tries to unplug mine. Heading out early tomorrow!

When I came back from the shower, I learned that Spare Change had been asked not to hike with us anymore. It wasn’t too much of what he said (although some comments were strange), he just didn’t really mesh well with the group and he wouldn’t hike with us most of the time. The group thought it was best to part ways.