Miles Hiked 158.1
PCT Mile 188.6
Elevation 4,069 feet
Miles Hiked Today 4.1
Wow! It was cold this morning. A fog bank was over my campsite, and there was a mist in the air. I’ve been regularly wearing my wool shirt at night, but last night I didn’t. It wasn’t until I was fully dressed and emerged from the tent that I realized how cold it was. My wool shirt was packed away safely in my backpack. Dumb
The weather gave me an incentive to get moving, and I started hiking at 7:00 a.m. . The trail was fairly easy; although it did go up slightly. This helped me make good time, and I arrived at Stevens Pass at 9:00 a.m. .
Apparently, the lodge was having a couple of big events. One was an archery shoot. The other was nothing more than a lot of bicycles riding the lodge’s bike trails.
To get to Leavenworth to pick up a provision box and rent a room (still no Internet), I had to hitchhike. There is no pubic transport that I could find.
It took about a half hour to get a ride. The driver was a nice guy on his way home to Montana. His travel route took him right through the center of Leavenworth.
The ride took about 45 minutes. When we got into Leavenworth, I was shocked at the amount of traffic. I knew that this was a huge tourist town but not this big. Leavenworth is styled after a Bavarian village and they’re very much into the German look and feel. It attracts a lot of tourists from Seattle.
My ride dropped me off in the the parking lot of a restaurant. I went into the restaurant and fortunately they were still serving breakfast. I had the taste for an omelette. Yep, hiker hunger has kicked in.
After consuming a large three egg omelette with hash browns and toast, I took off for the post office to pick up my provisions. At the post office, of all things, I met Ben with whom I had been hiking earlier. He told me that he got in Wednesday and actually extended his stay. Rooms are going for a couple hundred dollars or more a night. That’s wonderful that he could afford that since I sure wouldn’t pay it.
Ben related on how difficult the trail had been for him. His shoes were hurting his feet and when he got into Leavenworth he bought a pair of Altras trail runners. He will be back on the trail Saturday. I hope the new shoes help him some.
There were no rooms to be had for me in Leavenworth. The prices that I saw on available rooms were $300 a night and more. There’s no way that I was spending that kind of money.
I looked at the route I would need to take to get to Trout Lake and found Yakima, Washington was on the way and about halfway to Trout Lake. Trout Lake is where I’m heading to pick up the trail since I did the section between Steven’s Pass and Trout Lake last year. In Trout Lake last year I was evacuated from the trail again, and so I want to pick up the section from there to points South.
I walked to the edge of town and put out my thumb. It didn’t take long to get a ride to highway 97. Highway 97 would take me South towards Trout Lake. From here, I would try to hitchhike to Yakima. When I couldn’t get an affordable room in Leavenworth, I found very affordable rooms in Yakima, which is why I’m going there.
Again, it didn’t take long to get a ride. A very nice couple, Brian and Jan, picked me up and told me they were going as far as Ellensberg, WA. I was ecstatic over that information. That was nearly 2/3 the way to Yakima.
We had a nice conversation in the car and Jan was very generous in offering me an apple and some grapes. I had not had any fruit or vegetables in almost 2 weeks so I gladly wolfed them down.
After driving a bit, Jan and Brian decided to take me all the way into Yakima. They needed to do some shopping in town anyway, so they decided this was a good time to do it. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how lucky you can get to have such nice people do something like this for you.
The ride went fast. Brian was like a tour guide and gave me fascinating details of the area through which we were driving. I was amazed at how the landscape changed from mountainous to hilly and even flat. It was a big change from what I experienced over the last couple of weeks.
We arrived in Yakima around 3:30 p.m. and Brian and Jan took me right to the hotel. I thanked them profusely. They took off to do their shopping, and I checked into the hotel.
The Super 8 hotel is located at the intersection of a major highway and interstate 82. That will make it easy for me to begin my trip further south to Trout Lake when I leave.
That afternoon, I got all of my equipment and clothes together and began cleaning. After that was finished, I went to the Denny’s next door and had a large dinner.
Tomorrow, it’s catching up on my blog and various other things that have lapsed while I was out of touch on the trail.
