We woke up this morning excited because there was a promise of coffee in the morning from the trail angels camped only a few feet away. We packed up our gear and Tofu said she was heading out. In my mind Tofu knew that they offered to give us coffee in the morning so I didn’t mention it again. I can sometimes get annoyed when people say something to the effect of “aren’t you going to stick around for the trail magic?” Sometimes you just don’t want to deal with non-hikers or strangers so I didn’t remind her. Apparently this was the wrong move because we found out later that she had no idea and definitely wanted some java!
Anyway, she took off and moments later they offered us coffee and it was delicious. We chatted with them for about 40 minutes about the trail and about pack horses then we said our goodbyes and hit the trail. It was a chilly but beautiful morning and we were walking by some incredible views all morning. The Cascades are really stunning and I was starting to think how unfortunate it was that they felt so brief. We did have some smoke and clouds early in the Cascades but now for the most part the skies were clear and the views remarkable.
There was one ridge that looked like a fossilized jaw bone protruding out of the mountain side. It was easy to imagine some gigantic ancient beast thousands of feet tall coming to rest millions of years ago and eventually decaying into mountains of debris, leaving only his fossilized teeth and jaw line visible after many millions of years of erosion. I can see how sensational myths materialize from marvelous natural features.
We soon met up with Tofu for lunch and learned that she didn’t know about the coffee trail magic. Sorry Tofu! Lunch felt all too brief and we were soon on our way again. The stunning views continued as we ascended a very steep climb. It was pretty neat, though difficult, because we could see a bunch of hikers ahead of us as we went up the mountain because there were no trees blocking our view. We saw Tofu, DK, and Dosu hiking very quickly ahead and we were lumbering along.
There was plenty of exposure and views when we reached the summit and walked a pretty long ridge line to approach our campsite. Just before we reached our destination we stopped at a spring for water. At the spring we were shocked to see a group of campers sitting around a fire. This was the second time we have seen hikers or campers making fires during one of the most severe fire seasons in recent history. It is really sad to see people who should know better than most being so careless and thoughtless.
We reached our destination and Tofu was already set up. We set up our tent and all ate dinner together before turning in. It was very cold by the time we got into our tents and we were glad we are finishing soon because the temperatures have dropped rapidly and we knew snow was on its way.
Right before we settled into our bags to go to sleep a ranger pulled up and told us that the road was closing but the PCT was still open. We thanked her and got into our bags and quickly fell asleep like little hiker babies.