Day 4 and 5
Miles 0
PCT Mile 41
We woke up around the same time in the middle of the night and hung out for about two hours, stretching and visiting and whatever whatever.
We woke up again super early and sat around for an extraordinary amount of time. Finally Anji had enough and went for a walk while I put more holes in my toenails. She saw some viewpoints and went to look for her new sleeping bag at the lodge but it hadn’t arrived yet, so we were stuck for another day.
A crew of hikers showed up and we all had a great time visiting and re-visiting the same weather reports over and over again.
They were respectful and sweet, and I fell asleep to their whispers and headlamps moving around me at 7pm…
Morning came early and my poison ivy spread itself around my arm and little blisters showed themselves. Yellow and gooey and wanting to pop.
We all shared too much coffee, and Nope left and John arrived, and we all settled into our new group. Our new little hostel family. John was a cycle tourist too, and we had loads to talk about. Anji went to the post office a hundred times to look for her new sleeping bag, and the redneck in the lodge finally told us it had arrived, and we jumped around and hugged each other with joy.
Anji contacted our last trail angel, Keith, and he said he’d be a trail angel again at 7am tomorrow morning and take us to Sunrise Trailhead to start walking again. It’s at 5,000 feet, so we will be out of snow within 5 miles of hiking. That seemed acceptable.
Our little trail family kept talking about the weather and the snow, and my arm kept oozing and bubbling, and my toenails kept promising to fall off, and we couldn’t wait for morning.
So. Excited.