Day 147

Trail miles: between 10 and 11

Side trail miles: 6.3

Total: 2465.2

I think today was the easiest I’ve started crying. I just got up like normal and as soon as I started walking I was all water works again. I made it slowly to the water crossing we planned on doing together. It wasn’t bad at all, but as soon as I made it across, I slipped on a slanted rock and fell backwards on my hand. Of course I started balling immediately even though nothing was seriously injured. It did hurt, but when you’re on the verge of tears all day, anything will make you cry. My pole bent and now I can’t collapse it any further then it is. At least it will still work with my tent. They are really falling apart though. I won’t be able to use them after this, but I’m trying to get them to the end. Now it’s hard to even use the poles because of my bruised wrist. Now I was desperate so I took four Motrin and it actually helped a lot! I went from a slow miserable pace to a moderate tolerable one. Krista and I walked together for a while because she wanted to make sure I was doing ok just incase I needed to stop before town to camp. I got a message from Lifeguard saying Brad and her were behind us and taking a side trail to the highway that would shave off like 10 PCT miles. I desperately needed that so I told them I would take the next junction and try to intersect them down the trail. They then decided to just meet at our junction instead. We found out they had taken a wrong turn and walked almost a mile in the wrong direction, which is why they were so far behind us. The side trail was easy to follow. It didn’t look like anyone had been on it for a while or it wasn’t used much. There were a lot of downed trees and spiderwebs. The spiders were massive! Krista said they looked poisonous. When I was leading there was one point when I got so close to the spider I reacted by backing up right into Brad and Krista. Then we got to a water crossing where Brad and Krista took the log crossing, and Lifeguard and I took are shoes off and walked across. It was so painful on my feet. Then the rest of the trail was ups and downs following the creek. There were a lot of big waterfalls! It seems there’s so many of them, they just go unmarked unless they are really big. Someone wrote in the comments that the side trail was only 7 miles long, but my tracker said it was closer to 12! That’s a big difference I think. Still shorter than the PCT. I got the highway at the same time that Raechel got to the highway taking the PCT which was sad, but I guess I’m injured. We got a hitch from a guy on vacation after being broken up with just two days ago. He was a Tottenham supporter! Brad invited him to dinner with us after with went to the post office. He ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with us! I’m surprised he drove a couple hours and didn’t do any sight seeing. The food was good but the best part was the huckleberry lemonade from Bären Haus. I managed to get some chores done after taking the bus to the RV campground. I packed my resupply and prepared a package to send to my mom in Oregon. Then I washed my pot and took a shower. So nice when I won’t have to worry about those things in the morning! I’m also glad the campsite has chargers, which makes it so worry free. I won’t have to leave my phone in the bathroom charging all night.