PCT Day 152, Mile 2464 to 2487

Day 152

Mile 2464 to 2487, 23 miles

Miles to monument: 163
Miles to Manning Park, Canada: 171

Cost: Camped, free

Today I went up a lot and down a lot. To be precise I went up 5825 feet and came down 5402 feet. Tomorrow will be even worse 😦

Eating a choc brownie from Stevens Pass for breakfast

I left just before 8am with no plan on how far I was going to walk, all I knew is that I wasn’t going to camp at Pass Creek in 22 miles because of the mice reports.

Morning shadow selfie

Glacier Peak

It was a beautiful autumn day and I would even say it was too hot, but hot is better than rain and snow! I stopped at a fast flowing creek with a lovely waterfall to fill up my water and eat lunch. Dino DNA came along as well as a day hiker called Alan and his dog. I’m glad I got my water before his dog jumped in!

I got to the top of Grizzly Peak and had eaten lunch and all of today’s snacks but I had no energy so I sat down in the shade and had a nap. When I woke up I decided I was going to hike a few more miles making today a 20 mile day but as I started hiking I started to think about the weather forecast. Today and tomorrow was supposed to be good, then possible rain on Sunday & Monday and possible snow on Tuesday. I need to be in Stehekin on Tuesday to get out of the snow… I need to hike as far as possible in the good weather… and so I tried to make today a 26 mile day but was annoyed that I had only decided this after spending an hour napping… It looked like I would now be hiking in the dark for an hour.

I tried to speed up my pace and as soon as I did I slipped in mud on the downhill and landed on my right side. Luckily my hiking poles survived and so did my shoulder and bum and even more luckily, my phone that was in my right skirt pocket took the brunt of the fall but the screen saver saved my screen… That was lucky!

I passed Pass Creek around 6:30pm and there was a great big space for camping but no-one there – they’d probably all read the same reports that I had about the mice. I started to climb and hoped I might make it over the mountain and down to a lake on the other side but I passed a small campsite right beside the trail about 0.6 miles further than Pass Creek and decided to call it a night, I didn’t want to walk in the dark.

I set up and cooked dinner away from my tent. While I ate my couscous dinner I watched chipmunks trying to get into my tent but I didn’t see any mice… They’re probably both as bad as each other!