PCT Map Miles 350.5
Miles Hiked 222.8
Elevation 5,197 feet
Miles Hiked Today 16.5
What’s hiking without a little drama? I tried to charge my cell phone last night, and I get an error message saying the port is wet. Obviously, this is a leftover from the rain I got caught in a couple of days ago. So I blow into the port, but it’s still will not charge. Next I get my sleeping pad inflator out and I put it on vacuum. I tried to vacuum whatever moisture is in the port out of it but still no success. Then I use the inflator to just blow into the port to dry it out. I’m still getting the error message. This seems to be a lost cause so I’m going to not use the phone for navigation at all today in order to conserve what little power is left.
Today, the trail went up and it enabled me to get a fantastic view of Mount Rainier. Because of the problem with charging my phone, I could not take any pictures, but I had taken some previously so no real loss.
The trail ran mostly through forested areas and I enjoyed the forest views most of the day. This must be a holdover from my Appalachian Trail days since I really like being in the forest.
As a day progressed I almost felt liberated from not having to look at the phone for navigation every hour or so. Of course had I made a wrong turn, I would never have known, so fortunately that didn’t happen.
Today seem to go quickly and at 5:00 PM I finally turned on the phone. It was time to find some water and tent site. My battery charge was at 17%, which is low but enough to get me to camp and into town tomorrow.
After setting up the tent and eating dinner I decided to see if I could charge the phone. Miraculously, it accepted a charge and the phone, which I thought I might have to toss and replace, is now working again. Whew!
Tomorrow I go into Packwood. I can use a little time off.
