Monday, August 24
Start: Blowdown mountain trail intersection
End: Crow lake way intersection
Miles: 24.3 miles
Gain/loss: 6352’/5351′
Listened to: book- Furies of Calderon
I woke up this morning around 5:40am and was packed up and on trail an hour later. I took my time today, chatting with more people and texting at a few overlooks with cell service. Getting service allowed me to open up my Guthook app again, so I had that sorted for today (though I just managed to lock it up again a few minutes ago…). I made sure to hydrate a lot at every water source, since they were few and far between.
I definitely lagged a bit today, with the miles taking longer than normal, but I tried to remind myself that I did huge miles yesterday which means my body needs time to recover today.
I was excited to meet Thursday this afternoon and we stopped for maybe 20 minutes to chat in the shade. I met some of their NOBO tramily as they passed by and that was nice. Our chats encouraged me and gave me some extra strength for the final uphill climb to my evening’s campsite.
I arrived at the campsite area around 5pm. I found a site with 3-4 tent spots that was pretty perfect. Then I went the 0.1 miles up the trail to the water source and saw two other people camping in the trees nearby. One is a local section hiker and the other is a SOBO thruhiker Josh. They invited me to join them; I think I should have said I’d join them for dinner since the other site was so nice but I joined them and set up my tent in the confined area. We were joined by another section hiker soon after. Around 7:30pm, Rebekah and Johnathan came by to collect water and say hi before setting up camp at one of the nicer sites. I expect we’ll be staying at the place tomorrow night too. And then the day after, on Wednesday, we’ll arrive at White Pass/Packwood for a well deserved day off.
Hopefully, I’ll get some cell service tomorrow so I can refresh my Guthook. Basically, any time I open Guthook (or leave it open in the background) while searching for service but not having any, the app glitches out and cannot be fixed without service.
Transcending Mountains 