Miles today: 21.6

Trail miles sum: 1036.4

Trail location: 1717.7

Elevation: 4204

Spinning on the turntable: Rene’ Aubry: Petits sauts délicats avec grand écart

Today was primary a downhill trek with one notable climb.

I was relieved to find no deer hanging outside the tent waiting for me this morning…but I did wait to urinate until right before I left the tent site.

I enjoy the early morning hiking when the sun is just beginning to peek above the horizon. I usually have a good idea if someone is hiking ahead of me based on the number of spider webs I capture with my face.

These look like fall colors to me, but we’re still a bit early based on the calendar.

Even though I’m moving away from Mt. Shasta, she’s still a mighty presence.

I walked through a meadow of white flowers. The pictures don’t do it justice.

If you zoom in on the image you’ll see the white flowers extending into the distance.

I’m guessing that this is a claw sharpening station for a bear, but I’m not positive. The ripening thimble berries, black berries and raspberries have me on high bear alert.

Once I reached the summit I was tickled to find more trail magic!

More faceless trail angels leaving drinks behind. Thank you!

The soda was delicious! Oregon is setting a benchmark (so far) that Washington may find difficult to match.

I’ve been warned that that the trail magic periodicity in Washington leaves a lot to be desired and to have very low expectations. The explanation was that Washingtonians are simply not acclimated to the thru-hiking culture so they don’t support the trail quite as much as California/Oregon trail angels.

I guess the numbers tell a story too. There’s a hoard of hikers (4,500?) that start the hike in Southern California. The hiker drop out attrition rate, depending on which stats you believe, is horrific. I’ve seen attrition rates anywhere from 40% (Old PCTA stat) to 90% (social media). Anyway, there’s a lot less hikers traveling through Washington, so I guess I can understand that there would be less interest. I’ll let you know what I find out. 😎

I see signs knocked down here and there and wonder how it came to be laying on the ground. Sometimes it’s obvious that the elements caused the wood to rot. Other times it looks like a solid kick took down the post.

Noelle hiked up to meet me this afternoon and we hiked back to the van together.

Tomorrow (our day off) we’ll take the van in for a tune up, work on the blog, respond to email, talk finances with our financial advisor, track down a new road atlas for Oregon and Washington, go to a hiker gear store, and do a food resupply. I’m hoping to soak my feet for a few hours and see if two more toenails will pop off on their own.

I’m anxious to notch big miles on the trail and get closer to family within the next few weeks. A friend of ours is coming out to see us at Crater lake and we’re both pretty dang excited to see a friendly face.