August 24
Miles: 16.9
Mile Markers: 2370.6 – 2387.5
Miles to Canada: 268.3
Today was one of the best days I’ve had on trail. I actually slept horribly last night because we camped on an abandoned forest road on a ridge, and everyone camped with our tents close to each other because there wasn’t much space. I made the mistake of setting up too close to Bap, who snores, and Fonda, who has a hole in his air mattress and was cowboy camping right next to my tent (to be fair, I set up right next to him). Periodically in the night, he would have to blow up his mattress again. I’m such a light sleeper. I wake up with every noise.
Today was the last day of a heatwave and it was supposed to be 90° so we all woke up at sunrise and were on trail by 6am. I was the first one on trail at 5:50. I don’t want to be walking in the heat. Our plan was to hike 20 miles just before Snoqualmie, and then hike the last 5 miles there in the morning.
We started hiking, and thankfully there were a lot of water sources, so I could dunk my shirt in the water and we kept crossing forest roads. At one of the forest roads, we came to a truck where two women were cooking brunch and asked Do you want some brunch? Of course we do.
They made us grilled chicken caprese sandwiches which were pretty top tier trail magic. They were from Seattle and one of them had a sailing sweatshirt on with a boat name. I forgot the boat name but it said S/V something. So we talked about sailing for a while which was really exciting. The other woman had hiked the PCT in a high snow year and had cross country skied through the Sierra.
Immediately after leaving the trail magic, we saw what has to be the biggest ant hill I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It was like 3 feet high. It was massive, and there were so many ants. I’ve really never seen anything quite like it.
On a brief moment that I had phone service, I had texted my mom and my brother that my Garmin broke again, but that I was still alive. My brother asked if I wanted him to bring me a new Garmin and meet somewhere on the trail. We had tried to meet up a few days ago, but I’ve been hiking way faster than I had planned, so it wasn’t going to work out timing wise to meet at Chinook Pass. He wanted a Garmin InReach anyway, so he said I could use his and he would bring me a new one which is much more convenient than trying to figure it out with Garmin and getting another replacement. I can do that after trail.
On the way up, he very lovingly texted me What kind of beer do you hobos want? Rainier? Of course we do.
We waited for a couple hours on the forest road, hiding in the shade from the 90° plus temperatures. There was a mix-up as to which service road we were meeting at, but we didn’t really mind waiting. It was just too hot to hike, and it was the middle of the day.
We finally met up at a road forest route 118 and he drove up with a bunch of beers, apples, chips, salsa, Cheetos, and Spindrifts. It was really nice to see him, and his wife Emily. They’re moving back to Denver, which is really sad, but I’m also leaving Tacoma as well, but I did enjoy having them in town at least for a little bit.
My brother has done a good amount of backpacking himself, and was the one who recommended the Crown 60 and the Zpacks Duplex which is the backpack and tent that I’ve ended up with on the trail, and have really enjoyed. Emily is also no stranger to backpacking, and backpacked a section of the Colorado Trail with her brother. It was so nice to see them and hang out with the tramily. Combining the family and tramily together.
When they told my brother that I had gotten a new trail name – PT: Princess of Trash. My brother just said yeah that makes sense. What a brother thing to say.
My brother was given the honorary title of Baby Trash Prince, in the same vein as Mama and Papa Paint. Emily said not to worry – she’d call him Baby Trash Prince for me.
We hung out for an hour or two and then we needed to keep hiking and Ben & Emily needed to head home. It was such a nice day with them and probably my favorite trail magic of all from the entire trail.
We were going to hike the full 20 miles to a campsite just before Snoqualmie, but instead decided to camp at Mirror Lake and then hike 9 miles tomorrow morning to Snoqualmie which still isn’t that bad.
Fonda had really wanted to go swimming, so after we left this forest road and said goodbye to my brother, we’d only have about four more miles, although that 4 miles had a pretty large ascent. The trail magic really boosted the morale of the group and everyone was in a good mood when we arrived at camp, which was a nice spot with a lot of dayhikers.
We had dinner together on the shore of the lake, waving across the lake to some other thru hikers who had camped nearby. It was just one of those amazing days on trail where nothing was really planned too much, but it just ended up being perfect.
If you are enjoying this blog you can subscribe here to get email updates! If you are really enjoying the blog, please buy me a coffee and help me on my PCT journey! ☀️
