Day 126: WASHINGTON!!
Date: Tues 8/21
PCT Start Mile: 2146.7
PCT End Mile: 2172.4
PCT Mileage for Day: 25.7
Total PCT Mileage: 2172.4
The Highlights: goodbye to Melissa, Bridge of the Gods, into Washington, and a bee sting
This morning we packed up our stuff and bid goodbye to Lynne, our lovely Kiwi AirBnB hostess.
Next up, we swung by the hiker tent area at the Marine Park to pick up Dead Zone and head to the Bridgeside Cafe for one last hot breakfast before we hit the trail again. I continued my PCT favorite of chicken-fried steak.
Shawn and Melissa at the entrance to the Bridge of the Gods.
After breakfast, Melissa walked with us across the Bridge of the Gods. We were finally crossing into Washington!
The bridge is mostly metal grates and has no shoulder or sidewalk, but the cars are used to pedestrian traffic this time of year, and we walked single file along the edge. The day seemed slightly less hazy than yesterday, but a dull white film still clung to the air through the gorge.
Last state of the journey!
From the far side of the bridge, Melissa walked with us down to where the dirt trail resumed and left us with big hugs before walking back to the cafe. Such a great visit! She planned to do a bit of hiking herself before heading back to Portland.
The basic theme of our day was up-down-up, beginning with a nearly 12 mile ascent, followed by several miles of undulating terrain before a 5.5ish mile descent, and finally about a 5 mile ascent to where we are now camped. It was a bit of a rude welcoming to Washington.
Sometime within the first hour or so on the trail, I commented to Shawn that I hoped we had magically left all the annoying bees behind in Oregon. Particularly those that liked to buzz around my face whenever I was trying to eat.
Well, the bee gods above must have heard my comments, and the karma that followed not far down the trail was a sharp painful bee sting on my left calf. Totally unprovoked. The first bee sting I’ve gotten on the trail, and also the first in many years. I’d forgotten how much they hurt.
Not far from a river after I was stung, we made a stop so I could soak my leg/the sting in the cold water. It continued to sting for the next several hours, gradually fading through the afternoon and evening, with only random throbbing moments. Frick’in bee. I can still feel it while I lay in my sleeping bag.
We took a very late lunch break a little after 3pm since we’d had a big – and late – breakfast. Breaking at a tent site, we met a couple of hikers whom we hadn’t met before, and also had a bit of a reunion with a few we hadn’t seen in awhile.
One of the new hikers we met was Baby Blanket. He had gotten this name back in the desert, where – since he was from Maine – had been completely unaware of how shockingly cold the desert could be at night – and had brought only a thin down quilt. This had earned him the name Baby Blanket. After freezing for several nights, he finally upgraded to a quilt that was rated for lower temperatures.
We also met a female hiker named Coyote, much more pleasant than the male hiker with the same name. And, we had brief reunions with Mitty (now Tapeworm) and Upstream.
Tapeworm, from Australia, started the trail on the same day as us and was one of the first people we hiked with on the trail. We saw him again for a bit on Day 2, and then didn’t see him again after this until the Burney Mountain Guest Ranch around mile 1409. Now here we were over 2100 miles.
Upstream is a tiny little girl – who I believe only recently turned 18 on July 4th – from the Portland area. We leapfrogged a bit with her in northern California and southern Oregon. She is super pleasant and always has a smile on her face so it was good to see her.
We left our lunch break at 4pm, still with another 14 miles we wanted to get in for the day, which included a bit of the undulating terrain after the climb, the descent, and about five miles uphill.
Other than a brief burn/clear area, the majority of this hike was through the forest and, even as it grew dark, the night remained warm and muggy.
We finished the last hour of our hike with headlamps, quietly finishing at a flat road covered in pine needles. The road no longer appeared to be used for its original function and one other tent was set up nearby. We quietly set up and ate our dinners in the dark by the red light of our h headlamps, finally tucking ourselves into our sleeping bags around 10pm.
Ahhh… the first day back on the trail complete. I can already tell Washington will be a bit of work, with more climbs and steeper terrain. But for now… sleep.
