This morning I got up bright and early at my quiet tent spot. I have about 37 miles to go today to get to Stevens pass. And I’m hoping to get there fairly early so that I can head into town for the night. The nice thing is that someone reached out on Facebook and offered to drive me into Skokomish. So at least I don’t have to worry about hitching a ride into town. I just have to hope that there are actually rooms available at the hostel in town.

It seems like it will be perfect to spend the night in town in Skokomish. That way I can charge everything up so I don’t have to recharge in Stehekin in a few days. That will save me a little bit of time as well. It would also be nice to get some work done this evening in town. I definitely recall not having particularly great service over the remainder of the trail.

Plus, there really would be no reason not to go into town if I could manage it. I would still get a nice big mile day in. And it would be great to get some town food and additional calories. Really the only reason not to go in would be if it was difficult to get in or out of town. My one question would be how to get back to trail the following morning. Because I would really like to get a big day in the next day. But I have plenty of time to figure all of us out. My really good buddy Ricochet actually lives in Leavenworth, the town the opposite direction from Skykomish. It’s just more expensive and touristy so it doesn’t really make a ton of sense for me to go there alone. The Cascadia inn in Skykomish is pretty reasonable and just rents small private rooms and then has communal living space. It makes a little bit more sense for me to do while hiking by myself.

The morning was really nice and I initially set out into the dark. I knew I had a river crossing to do fairly early in the day. I was super curious how the water level was going to look after all of the rain the other day. But apparently it’s been a drought in Washington, which could bode well for me. It wound up being a really nice start to the day and I did have one very long climb. Which went on for a couple of hours before I finally got up to the top. Then I immediately began dropping down all the way back. I believe I was around 12 or so miles into the day when I finally came to that river crossing. And the the nice thing was, at the same time I saw my first people of the day.

There was a couple coming southbound along the trail and they were going across the river right as I arrived. I’d seen some comments about a submerged log, which sounded kind of sketchy. I really don’t like to cross rivers on wet slick logs. But the water level was actually so low that the log was completely dry and exposed. So it wound up being super easy to cross the river the two times that I had to. And that was actually the only river crossing I would have to do for the whole day. That also leads me to believe that the ones coming up in a couple days aren’t going to be a problem either.

It was nice to have that out of the way because it had kind of been looming over me. It’s just hard sometimes to focus on anything else when there is some sort of an obstacle in your way for the day. After walking for 5–6 hours, I finally stopped off for the first break of the day. It was around noon and I had carried a Sunny D all the way from Snoqualmie to here. Which means that that Sunny D went almost 60 miles. I’ve been making a habit of doing that recently and it’s pretty hilarious. Drinks taste a whole lot better after you carry them 40-60 miles.

I sat down really briefly and ate and drank something. Then knew I would be starting to make my way up the next climb soon thereafter. I was kind of just hoping to keep my head down for the rest of the day so I could get to the road as early as possible. Some sections of the trail definitely did slow me down a little bit. But I was hoping that the later part of the day would be a little bit easier. If that was the case, then I could ideally get to the road sometime between 6–7PM.

Over the later part of the day the trail went by so many big beautiful lakes. Some were deep, almost seafoam green, and just absolutely gorgeous. Others were that bright crystal clear blue. The trail would often drop all the way down to these beautiful bodies of water and then skirt alongside them. Then would climb up and pass them, and you would get views of the lakes from higher up later on. It’s fun to see how every section of trail has its trends. Similar to the way that you go up the mountain passes in the Sierra and then drop down into the valleys below. Repeating this trend over and over. Every section has its thing.

Today I think I saw more blueberries lining the trail than on any other section so far. Most of the time both sides of the trail were absolutely surrounded by bushes covered in ripe plump little berries. I spent a whole lot of time picking and eating them. Honestly, I think I could spend my entire day doing that. I even ran into some people over the course of the day who were carrying around little Tupperware and picking berries. That would be really nice.

I tried to stay on task though and just keep moving. It wound up being a really beautiful day and was nice and cool similar to yesterday. I would definitely prefer to climb when it’s a little bit colder than a little bit hot. And I had a lot of elevation gain to do over the course of the day. I sort of forgot that Washington was like this. You wind up going up a fairly large mountain, maybe 2000-3000 feet high. Then, almost as soon as you get up to the top, you begin coming back down again. If I wasn’t tracking my mileage and elevation gain every day, I might not have even noticed the spike. I’m definitely doing a few thousand more feet more of climbing per day than I was a week or two ago.

Right around 5 PM I began going up the final climb of the day. That would take me up toward a ski lift type area. Then I would level out on the top and begin the gradual descent down to Stevens pass. I knew I would get service once I got up which sounded great. I wanted to confirm with my ride. I had sent her a GARMIN message, but she never did get back to me. I also wanted to call the Cascadia inn and see if they actually even had any rooms available.

When I finally did get service, I got a message from my ride who unfortunately had to cancel. That got me pretty nervous because I really couldn’t remember how the hitching situation was. I just recall, seeing lots of comments that I can take a while. Most likely because you’re hitching literally on the side of a busy highway. I did call the Cascadia Inn and they had plenty of rooms available for the night. But I was just worried I wouldn’t be able to get over there.

It took about 40 minutes to get down the hill and over to Steven’s pass. The trail drops straight down by a lodge and a small store with a coffee shop inside. But at this point in time, it was after 6 PM and everything was closed. I basically ran straight out to the road, eager to start hitching immediately. I was super nervous that I wouldn’t be able to get a ride.

A bunch of people pulled by and asked if I wanted to go to Leavenworth. But I definitely didn’t want to head over there. I think it’ll be a hard town to get out of tomorrow morning. And it’ll probably cost two times as much to stay there tonight. I stuck my thumb out once I got to the side of the highway that I actually wanted to hitch from. And literally only had it out for maybe 60–90 seconds before a car pulled over.

There had been a group of guys working on a vehicle next to the road. When I first showed up and started hitching, I could see that they were staring at me and it looked like they might’ve taken a couple pictures of me. Maybe they’ve just never seen someone hitchhiking before. But it was even funnier when I almost immediately got a ride into town. The look of shock and surprise on those guys‘s faces were priceless. I must have just absolutely blown their minds by showing them that not only the people still hitchhike, it’s actually incredibly effective.

The nicest couple picked me up on their way into another town. Apparently they’re going to a town further away, but they have to drive past Skykomish on their way. I can’t remember the name of the place they were going. They had a super cute dog in the backseat so I got to snuggle with the dog. And the one girl knew a lot about thru hiking and the PCT. So she wound up asking tons of questions and I had a really great time chatting with them. They even had an ice cold grapefruit seltzer for me to drink along the way. Which was absolutely delightful.

I was in town dropped off the Cascadia inn by 7 PM. Which seemed crazy because originally I had corresponded with my ride about maybe getting picked up around 6:40 PM so all things considered, having my ride cancel actually didn’t impact the day at all. Honestly, it might’ve even been a faster day because I got a ride immediately and arrived a little bit early.

I got checked in at the Cascadia Inn by the same nice guy who’s been running the place for 20+ years I definitely recognize him from 2022. The Cascadian is a super unique space. It’s basically just a hostel with a really nice shared space, kitchen, living room. There’s also a restaurant attached to the building. Then upstairs are a bunch of private rooms with beds and bedside tables. Some of the rooms have their own bathrooms and other ones use shared shower and laundry facilities. I just remember the place being super nice and clean.

Plus when I’m getting in at 7 PM all I really need is to take a shower and have some place to quietly get work done before going to bed. So this place is absolutely perfect. Once I got in, I dropped my stuff off and headed down the street to the deli to grab dinner. They would be closed by 8 PM so I had to get over there. I got a milkshake and two sandwiches. Then headed next-door to grab some drinks and a couple things at the store. The resupply options in town are basically just the deli and a gas station. But lucky for me I have plenty of food to get to Stehekin. I definitely left Snoqalmie with five days of food. Because after two full days of being out, I still have three days of food left over.

After grabbing everything, I headed back to the Cascadia Inn. While I was walking over, Ricochet gave me a call. We hiked about 800 miles of the PCT together in 2022 and then he was attempting the calendar year triple crown this year. He got injured early on and then I wound up seeing him again when he finally did get back on trail at Boots off on the AT. We hiked a handful of miles together for one day and then he permanently got off trail due to injury. It was really nice to chat with him for a long time as I got settled in into the hotel.

He’s actually planning on attempting the calendar year triple crown again next year, and I’m so excited to watch. It’s going to be an absolute blast to be a spectator in 2026.

The rest of the night I just ate all my food and drank a bunch of drinks. I took an amazing shower and opted not to do laundry. It had only been a couple days. Then wound up getting a bunch of writing and video editing done while I laid in bed for the rest of the night. It was great to get everything charged so I don’t have to worry about charging again until the PCT is complete. Then will likely be able to charge in East glacier before getting on the CDT. Or perhaps while I’m getting a ride to East glacier.

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