Although I made it to sleep at a reasonable hour, I had a rough night. My foot pain came back during the night and made my sleep uncomfortable. It was always looming over me and my mind could not escape the fact that this may impact my whole trip. I thought that loosening my shoe would help, but the main thing that it did was cause me to roll my ankle more frequently. I knew there were going to be some residual effects of this after the trip was over, but I tried to ignore it. I knew the problem was being created by the new inserts that I put in my shoe. I was just going to have to decide if it was worth it to keep going. I thought about taking a break at Snoqualmie Pass, but once I got moving again, I felt like it was not going to impact my trip too much.
I only got moving at 7:15 AM. This was a late start for me as I seemed to have trouble moving very quickly on this morning. I was hiking just fine, though, as I had a little bit of uphill in the morning and then it was all downhill after that. I knew I only had about 9 miles to go to get to Snoqualmie Pass. From there, I could make different decisions on what to do about my foot. The walk there would really tell me. I moved along just fine with a couple of through hikers passing me in the morning. There were a lot of huckleberries around on the open slopes, so that gave me a little bit of fresh fruit. As I got closer to Snoqualmie Pass, the day hikers started to come out. There were not nearly as many as I expected, though.
Given the trail's proximity to a large metropolitan area, I was surprised. Maybe this area was just viewed as less scenic than the north side of the trail. It gave me something to look forward to. The trail wound through open slopes and forest when soon I was on a ski hill heading downhill into the town that housed the ski area. I asked some people if they knew the town well. They said they did and recommended the grocery store to the left for fancier food and the gas station for packaged food. So I walked over to the fancy grocery store. There I took a break to get some charging done and talk to my wife. She was in a rare mood and seemed determined to take me off the trail to wait out an impending thunderstorm that was on its way.
I am not going to lie, it had me all confused. I trusted her judgment, but thought that she was overreacting. I talked to both of my parents and we agreed that I would just hike early and try to camp earlier to avoid being in a bad spot during a thunderstorm. This is what I told her. She still was not convinced. The funny thing about the conversation is that it seemed to make up my mind about my foot. I would go forward because that was what I was planning to do. It took me a while to get through all of that. In the process, my electronics were charging very slowly. I ordered myself a burrito. I had lunch with a very nice Canadian couple. The guy was a teacher and a former cross country coach. I walked over to the gas station to buy some extra food in case I needed to stay out an extra day.
It took me about 3 hours to get all reorganized again and to set out on the trail. It was 1 pm by the time I was heading out. This meant that I was going to be on the trail during the heat of the day and it was going to be a hot one. Also, now my pack was a little bit heavier considering I had bought a little more food and all my water was filled. I had a lot of uphill to cover as the trail gained about 2500 feet from about 3000 feet in elevation to around 5500 feet. I was feeling pretty good, though. The three hour rest was sort of a luxury and now my foot and my energy level seemed to be at a peak. I was feeling pretty good with my ability to get up the many switchbacks. I was passing lots of people coming down as this was the more scenic section from Snoqualmie Pass. Just as I was feeling really good, a northbound thru hiker came behind me. I got off the trail for him to pass. We chatted for a little bit. He was covering 40+ miles a day. He was from Canada and said that his favorite part of the trail was Oregon. I appreciated that. He and I talked for a few minutes and then he was gone, never to be seen again. I continued to fight my way up the switchbacks doing my best to stay cool. I took my breaks every hour and soon I was approaching more open country. There were tall, pointy mountains all around.
I had been viewing these mountains for many days as I hiked through the endless forests south of Snoqualmie. Now I was finally there. I really was enjoying this section of trail. I knew, though, that there was a dangerous section that loomed up ahead. I was nervous about what I read about the Kendall Katwalk. Here was supposed to be a very narrow, very exposed section of the trail. When I actually got there, though, it turned out to be a walk in the park. Not only was it not narrow, but you could have fit two people wide on that section of trail super easy. Sure, there was a large drop off, but it would have been nearly impossible to actually fall down that.
Once I got passed the Kendall Katwalk, I realized how tired that I was. I knew that Ridge Lake was up ahead and it would be really nice to camp at a lake. I was hot, sweaty, tired, sore, all the things that a lake could help me improve. But Ridge Lake would leave me with a day of only 16 miles. This seemed like too small of a day. Still, when I got to the lake and saw its cool inviting waters, I decided that this would be my destination for the night. There were other groups already camped there, but I found a nice big site to myself that I could stay at. After putting down my tent, though, the ground was a little bit too dusty for me. So I grabbed the tent and moved it down the hill.
Here I had a campsite right next to the water. I put up the tent and then went for a swim. It was a little muddier than I was hoping for, but eventually I got to the middle. It was pretty comfortable conditions, but I still only stayed for a few minutes. It dropped my body temperature down and got me clean pretty quick. I made myself some dinner and pumped some water. While I was pumping water, a couple swam with their dog all the way across the lake. I ended up talking with them later. They were interested in hiking the PCT. I encouraged them to go for it. You too can have a numb foot. Actually the foot wasn't too bad and I think that 3 hour break was pretty good for it. I got myself to sleep early because the plan was to get up early to beat the thunderstorms.
No comments:
Post a Comment