PCT // White Pass to Snoqualmie // Episode 33

Good morning! It's day 147. Today we are headed to White Pass. There's a cracker barrel there. I don't really know. It's like a convenience store. But apparently they also have showers and laundry. So we are hoping to do both of those things and get more food. Should be pretty good. We have about 11.6 miles to the turnoff and then the cracker barrel is like 0.6 miles off the road. Going into these towns always takes longer than we hope it to or than we expect it to. So hopefully it doesn't take too long. But you know we gotta take advantage of it while we can. Today is supposed to not rain so that's happy. And tomorrow is supposed to start raining. Let's do it. We made it to White Pass. Now it's just 0.6 miles that we walk to the cracker barrel. Nick just got a bunch of wasp stings on his legs and I got one. Ouch. It's really painful. But we'll be there soon. We left White Pass cracker barrel after being there almost six hours. But I don't know. It always goes by so quickly. It's like and I still feel like I never do all the stuff I need to do or all the emails. There are so many hikers there. It's like lately on trail you hardly see anyone throughout the day. I guess because everyone's just walking kind of the same speed. I don't know. Like if someone's a mile or two in front of you you just don't really see them. But then there there's like 20 hikers. Like some of our friends and then all kinds of people. So it's cool to see everyone. There's like a convenience store gas station but they have like a little hiker hangout area. I mean I guess it's just for anyone to hang out but it was full of hikers today. So they have some tables, places to charge stuff, hiker box, food. Now we're back. It's like six o'clock p.m. It turned out to be a pretty nice day today. Like the sun was out. The rain is coming. Felt weird sitting inside all day when we know the rain's coming but oh well. Make the most of what we have now. We made it a couple miles. At a white pass. Came to Deer Lake. Ready for the rain tonight. Impending doom. Just kidding. Gonna eat some dinner with this lovely view. Good morning. It's day 148. We're eating breakfast in the tent. Usually we like to like just get up and go eat like a bar and then we have like actual sit-down breakfast like 10 miles in but we thought since it's gonna be raining all day it's not very fun to like sit and eat breakfast in the rain so just eat breakfast now and then like eat our bars and stuff later and hopefully we can just walk through the rain. Try anything. Nixa wasp bites are very super itchy and painful. My one is also itchy but not so bad. We could just stay here all day. We don't have to walk. Sounds good to me. Okay let's let's do that. It's never that appealing to like like yeah let's just get out and go walk in the rain. Yep that's what we're doing. Eventually we'll get out and do it then. Good morning. It's day 149. We had breakfast in the tent again today. It's like kind of raining this morning but it's not raining now so that's great news but it's cold. It's really cold like my fingers. I cannot feel them. We started off the trail with a pair of like really good merino possum gloves from New Zealand and they were warm and then I lost them somewhere along the way and then in Kennedy Meadows I bought a pair of gloves and they're just not great gloves. That's what I have now and they're just like they said they were waterproof and yesterday walking in the rain all day I found out they're indeed not waterproof. So they're soaking wet and putting on the wet gloves seems worse than just having the cold hands. So there might be a chance I have some service today and maybe I'll order a pair to Snoqualmie or I'm just gonna hope that Snoqualmie has some gloves I can buy. Anyway that's the glove drama but uh yeah it's cold. But yeah today there's like this cabin in the woods. That sounds scary. It's in 23 miles and it has like a fireplace and stuff so that's where we're planning to go and we're gonna dry off our socks and our shoes and we're gonna get toasty warm. So yeah I'm looking forward to that. That sounds really good. That's today. Hello Washington. You ready? Yeah. I heard there were some pit toilets in a trash can so I was like oh let's go there and then we ran into this trail magic. Whoa so exciting. Hey my name is Squirtle. I did the PCT this year. Finished about two weeks ago. Came back to Chinook Pass to do some trail magic. Now here we are. Making mac and cheese. Hot coffee. I was just talking about my cold fingers and now they feel warm and he made mac and cheese with actual butter. Wow this is very exciting. Very very exciting. It's a good day. That trail magic was such a morale booster. So unexpected and so appreciated and it was a good start to the day. Now I feel pretty good. It's really beautiful and the sun's coming out a little bit so things are looking up. All the fall colors are coming out as well so it's starting to look very colorful. Really nice to actually see some views. Cool. Good morning. It's 150. We just left the cabin. That was pretty cool. It was nice to be warm. It was pretty full up. I think we counted like 17 people all together stayed there. A lot of familiar faces. There's like a top floor which is the sleeping area but that was full. Snake and I slept on the bottom floor with the mice. Lots of mice but uh it's pretty good. It was dry and there's a fire heading out today with dry stuff which is great. Although it's just starting to rain now so we'll be wet again soon. Yeah so today hoping just to stay warm and dry. That's all is the goal now. All right let's do this thing. It looks so weird. I look very weird. I'm lying down. I can't. I really can't be bothered to sit up. It's been a long rainy day. Actually the first half was not really that rainy. We were able to have a little lunch break. We were like well it's not as bad as we thought and then it started just raining and then the next several hours were just rain rain rain and now it's raining and rain rain rain. Nick and I ate some mac and cheese in the tent. Cooked in the vestibules and uh it's pretty cold. It's like in the 40s now at night. We're in almost all my layers. Tomorrow we're going to Snoqualmie. And we got a hotel room booked. We're excited because that means we're not going to be sleeping in a tent in the rain. So very much looking forward to that. We have 20 miles to get there. We'll be able to sleep in a bed. Oh man walking in the rain just really takes it out of you. It's like getting really old. From my calculations we have two weeks left of walking until we'll be done and that includes like a couple half days you know when we go into town. October 1st is our projected end date and that's what we've been planning on for a while but it looks like that might actually be the day we finish. It's exactly two weeks from today so you know two weeks of wet walking we can do it. I'm gonna be honest it's not great. No one else would ever be like yeah I'm gonna go on a two-week backpacking trip in the rain in the cold rain. If we hadn't come this far and we weren't so determined to finish we probably wouldn't do it either but you know we are we're determined to finish through the rain and all. It's pretty rough right now that's pretty challenging but um tomorrow we get a bed and that's motivating me at this moment and right now I gotta go to sleep so that's also exciting. Okay good night. Good morning it's day 151 and it's not raining. Originally the forecast said it was gonna rain all day so it's a happy moment right now but it did rain last night and uh it did wake up with water dripping on my face from condensation so you know. Today we are going into Snoqualmie but let's get to walking. 90%! 10% left. I remember the first 10% felt like so exciting it was when we got to Big Bear and it took seems like a really long time and now our last 10% feels so different feels like we're almost done. We're almost at Snoqualmie Pass. It's a skewed town well I don't know if you'd call this a town but it looks like everything is uh compact and convenient that's good. Pretty cool and then the big mountains are covered in clouds.