This morning I woke up really early with the intention of walking by 5 AM. I boiled water for coffee and then brought the coffee in my tent to drink it as I began dozing in and out. Not long after that, a bit of an emotional roller coaster ensued. Usually, I pour my water the night before and leave the cup outside my tent. I do this so that I don’t have to make noise in the morning while I filter my water.

This morning, though, apparently I didn’t take a good look inside the cup. I just boiled the water and then poured the instant coffee and hot chocolate inside. Originally, I thought there were some pieces of coffee that hadn’t completely dissolved. I dozed off and woke up to drink more coffee and noticed that the little bits I had seen in the cup were certainly not instant coffee. I had boiled many large ants which were inside my cup, likely drinking some of them. Because it was so early in the morning and my brain just wasn’t completely turned on yet, I hadn’t even noticed until it was too late.

Sure, I only drank some other coffee and then realized and dumped the rest out. But I can’t believe that I started my day by drinking ants for breakfast. It’s almost more shocking that that hasn’t happened yet this year, to my knowledge. But that was a pretty rough way to start the day. Another thing that was surprising were the number of people at this large campsite who were already packing up. Usually I slink quietly out of a site around five in the morning, and no one else would be stirring. This morning by the time I actually packed up and was walking there were already a few people gone. Though, it was only about five or 6 miles to the road where you can get a ride into Trout Lake. They do a shuttle at 8:30 AM, and I figure people were eager to get in line for that.

When I finally set out this morning, it was still a bit dark out. And there were still probably 6–7 tents set up at the site by the river. I left the camp spot and immediately began a fairly gradual climb. It was nice and cool and I was feeling really good this morning. Doing all that I could to stay motivated and energized for the 40+ mile day ahead. On a bright side, at least today is the last big day before I arrive in town. It’s always a bit easier to be motivated to do big miles when the reward is very close. Such as getting into town tomorrow.

I walked for a couple hours, and then slowly began descending down to the road and trailhead where you can head into Trout Lake. There were actually already three other hikers there when I arrived, sitting and waiting for the shuttle. But they were over an hour early and were just hanging out. I signed the register and realized that one of the people sitting there was from Philly. So I walked over and started chatting with her. Her name was Rocket Arse, which is hilarious. And the other two people at the road were named Pigeon and Half. When Pigeon introduced himself, I came to realize that he had previously been hiking with a person who I met at Agua Dulce.

I was actually hoping to run into a group of hikers who I camped with and hung out with back in Agua Dulce. I’ve ran into a few of them already over the last week or so. But it seems like the majority of that group is a little bit further ahead. I honestly probably would not have caught up to them if I hadn’t jumped over Oregon. I asked Pigeon if he was still hiking with Bubbles, one of the people that I met and camped with back in the desert. Bubbles and I have messaged back-and-forth on Instagram a little bit and I knew I was going to catch up to them very soon.

It turns out we were all camped at the same spot together last night! Apparently Bubbles is not an early riser and was a little ways behind. But Pigeon insisted that he might not be too far behind, so I decided to sit down for a few minutes and chat with the gang. Hoping that the other hiker would arrive while I was there. Two more hikers would arrive as I sat there, but none of them were bubbles. One hiker named Starburst showed up who actually had just signed a trail register right before me the other day. I remember seeing the name as I signed just below it. I stuck around a little bit longer, but then eventually had to continue on. I was only about 6 miles in for the day and still had 34 miles to go. I told Pigeon to give Bubble some shit about sleeping in and missing running into each other. But that’s just how it goes out here sometimes. Honestly, it was almost a funnier situation that our paths didn’t cross, than it would’ve been if they did.

When I left the parking lot I got back into the woods and continued down the trail. An hour or so after leaving there, I entered into the Mount Adams wilderness. This section of wilderness was absolutely beautiful and I got some great views of the mountain off in the distance. Plus, I knew that in the next day or so I was just going to get closer and closer and the views were going to get even more spectacular. I have these vivid flashbulb memories of being in this section. But my brain is like a strange jumble of time and miles. I can’t remember which view happened when, and if it was going to be today or tomorrow. Which I guess is kind of exciting.

At one point, I walked along a hillside covered in burnt trees. Many of them had blown down in some kind of a wind storm and were obstructing the trail. So for a little while, I had to navigate around those. They were all easy enough to step up and around, it just added a little bit of time to my day. But at least this morning waking up, I had the expectation that the trail might slow me down a little. It didn’t slow me down dramatically yesterday, but everything took a bit longer than I had originally estimated. I don’t really mind that at all. I just like to be able to keep that in mind when I’m planning out my day.

As the day went on the views of Mount Adam’s got even better and better. And I wound up walking by lots of rivers and streams, flowing almost white with milky water. I recall that the color of the water has something to do with silt and snow melt, perhaps. But I really can’t completely recall. I just know that when the creeks in the forest look milky such as that, it makes me think of fairies. It feels like I’m walking right through fairyland.

As I was making my way through this next section, I started to remember more and more about what was coming up. I actually eventually had the vivid memory of exactly where I had camped previously. Eventually the trail would drop down off a ridge into an open valley. A beautiful water source ran through it and then there were some great tent sites off in the trees. Today I just walked on by there though. But, just prior to that tent site, there was another surprise in store for me. I had completely forgotten about a pretty noteworthy river crossing.

It was probably 2 miles before that lovely tent site. And I was walking through a talus field of rocks when I had the realization that I was just about to turn a corner and come upon the river. Previously, I remember crossing on some sketchy wet logs. It’s one of those river crossings where you have to cross multiple times as well. When I arrived, the water was flowing pretty strong over the first few logs. They were narrow, wet, and fairly high above the water. I opted just to walk right through a slower moving portion of the water instead.

A different version of me used to do anything in the world to keep my feet dry. I would hop on all kinds of things to avoid getting my feet wet. But over the last year, l I almost always choose to walk straight through the river. If there’s even a slight chance of me slipping on a log, there’s a fat chance I’m doing it. The river itself was incredibly fast moving. But fortunately it was fairly shallow where I crossed. Then I got out onto some more land and had to navigate down and around to get to the next safe place to cross the second portion of the river.

My feet were already wet, so I was completely fine with getting them wet again. But the next section of river was way too deep and fast moving to get into the water. Luckily, there was a log crossing over this portion of the river, which was a lot wider. Plus the log wasn’t wet. So I felt completely comfortable walking across that log to get to the other side. That whole thing took way more time that I wouldn’t have hoped. But I was just glad to have gotten across safely.

By this point in the day, I’d already gone pretty far. But still had a ways to go. Fortunately, the trail was pretty flat and cruisey for the next couple of hours. Eventually I would drop down to a road with the trailhead parking area. Then I would begin the last claim of the day. I would also be entering into the goat rock’s wilderness.

When I got to the next road, I sat on a big log and enjoyed a quick break. I knew that I probably wouldn’t be stopping off again for the rest of the day except to grab water for camp. I would proceed up this next climb, and then eventually the trail would level out and I would just cruise along for the rest of the day. There was a marked trail junction about 40 miles into the day, which apparently had some flat spots for tenting. And it wasn’t super far from a prior water source. That seemed perfect and would leave me with just about 30 miles to do tomorrow to get to White pass.

As I suspected, the last climb wasn’t too bad at all. And the rest of the day went by surprisingly quickly. I did have to cross over a creek, which had a broken bridge across it. I basically just had to scoot down on my butt to slowy slide down the wood as to not fall into the water below. Then just before I hit the water, I climbed back up the other side of the wood bridge. It was broken right down the middle, forming into a perfect little triangle. But that would be my last major obstacle for the day.

In the early evening, I entered into the goat rocks wilderness. Then walked along a rock and beautiful ridge line for most of the rest of the day. Eventually getting up top of one hill just before dark. There were a couple mediocre tent spots up there and I contemplated stopping. But all of a sudden, I heard this ridiculously loud noise. At first, I thought it was a bird screeching at me. Then I got a little nervous that it might be a larger animal. I didn’t know what it was at first, but I just decided to keep moving. It was another half mile or so to the trail junction, where there were apparently flat spots to get set up.

I got to that trail junction just before dark and there was nobody there. So I got my tent set up and got situated inside. After a while, though, I started to hear the strange noise again which scared me earlier. But after listening for a little while, I realized it was the bugling of an elk. If I listened closely enough, I could actually hear the male elk and the female elk respond with another sound. It went back-and-forth for a while and actually was pretty cool.

Maybe a half an hour after that, I started to hear something large rustling around. After listening to it for a minute I was certain it was something as big as a bear or an elk. I figured it didn’t know that I was there so I decided to start making some noise. I just started talking to it and was asking “are you a bear or an elk?“ And to my extreme surprise a human voice responded “I’m a person, and we’re trying to sleep!” that was absolutely hilarious. My immediate response was that that was way worse than a bear or an elk. Apparently people had been camped somewhere off the trail, which wasn’t visible from the junction. And because I arrived just before dark, I couldn’t see them.

On the bright side, I no longer had to worry about an animal walking into my camp. But I had pissed some people off. Fortunately, I’m not a mind reader or a fortuneteller, and I certainly don’t feel guilty for not being one. I just remained quiet for the rest of the night. I had some dinner and got comfortable. I was pretty dang tired and didn’t stay off up got much longer. Just like yesterday the terrain took a bit longer than I expected. I definitely wasn’t maintaining a 3MPH pace all day long. Because of this, I decided to have an earlier start tomorrow morning.

There is a small store called the Kracker Barrel at White pass, which is open until 6 PM. So if I started walking at 5:30 AM and had to go 30 miles, there’s a chance that I could get to the store after they close if the terrain was slow going. I would probably make it regardless, but really didn’t want to worry about it. I figured I would try to start between 4-4:30 AM then would certainly get to town well before the store closed.

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