July 4th, 2024
Mile Marker: 389.2
Miles Hike: 32
Sleep last night was quite unusual. Around 11 PM we were blasted by fireworks next door and then all throughout the night trains came through blasting their horns. Sleep, wake up violently, sleep, and repeat all night.
We slept in a little and slowly got ready for the day. We were all so thankful for a nice picnic table to get ready. I also got some donuts the day prior as a little Fourth of July celebration to go with my coffee/hot chocolate mix. 🥳
I also realized that this thru hike has been so different due to the fact that we choose not to listen to music in grizzly territory. Most days in the afternoon I’d listen and have a pick me up, or just help keep me in that positive mindset.
This morning I plugged in one headphone as I got ready and almost immediately had a smile on my face. Ah, listening to my sisters uplifting morning music.
We chatted more with a couple from Belgium and headed out around 8:30ish. Later than usual but it was an unusual start.
The first 13ish miles of today was pavement back to gravel back to trail. All in a steady uphill slope.
I was loving it because we can hike so much faster.
The scenery was beautiful and we saw a lot of people heading out to camp in their RVs.
We took a lunch break on the side of the gravel before reconnecting with trail and I noticed Robot eating from a baggie. He claims it’s the new hiker trash approach to cold soaking. I was appalled. Journey and I will happily keep our stove for hot food. 😁
While trying to reconnect to the trail, the trail disappeared so we found ourselves bushwhacking until we reconnected.
The trail kept us in the trees for most of the day so we kept cruising fairly easily.
My legs felt good today, I think yesterday’s burger did them well and all the climbs weren’t too steep but were a nice steady grade with switchbacks.
Our water sources today were a bit questionable and had quite a bit of junk in them that made our filters clog a little. However, we need water so we make it work and plan to back flush our filters in town.
Also Journey has freakishly good balancing skills as he walked out on a log, bent down to get water, and walked back without a hitch.
Towards the end of the day and last bit of climbing we made it to the top of a climb that finally let us have a view of the surrounding area.
We made it to a camp spot about 30 miles in and realized it was surrounded by dead trees and was severely sloped. That was not going to work for us. It was late but we figured we could continue on for a couple more miles.
We planned to go to a “lake” and camp and found ourselves out in a big meadow next to marshy pond and some more dead trees. It was gorgeous though. This was the longest we had spent trying to find a solid place to camp. We decided to go out in the meadow knowing that it would get cold and wet during the night but thought that would be better than a tree falling down on us.
We made dinner quickly and finally got in our tents around 10 PM, whew. What a long day.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 