July 18th, 2024
Mile Marker: 742
Miles Hiked: 28
What a friggin day.
This morning we woke up to a beautiful sunrise poking up over the mountains. I opened up our tent vestibule and watched the sun change colors. We decided to get moving early and out before the sun got too hot. Out by 7:30, nice improvement!
The morning started with a beautiful gravel walk through with open views of the mountains surrounding. I was loving this change in landscape and vast views.
We had one major climb of 3,000 feet today that stair stepped its way up and then had easier terrain the rest of the day, minimal climbs.
As we started going up, I could tell my body wasn’t yet warmed up but kept moving in a nice pace. The sooner we get up this the better.
Once we got to the very top of the climb we had wide views showing the mountain range to our right.
It was hot, but windy so it kept us from overheating. Water today was not as frequent as usual and found ourselves having to carry for 9 miles to start then every 6 or so.
We had lunch around one and had already done 14 miles for the day. I love getting majority of the hiking done early.
We took a decent size break at a spring and then headed back out to gorgeous views. Going in the trees for a little bit to popping back out to views.
We went through many gates today. Some were hard to open and close and some had neat designs.
Journey and I talked about Nuke a little today as I felt like I could manage talking about it. We had left it untouched since. Journey discussed going through something similar with his own dog and after a bit I told him I was ready to change the subject which he completely understood. Baby steps.
As we were nearing the end of our day we had to decide if we wanted to get close to Bannock Pass to try and hitch to get into Leadore, Idaho or if we wanted to camp right before. Neither of us could make a decision and decided we would go to the pass and see if any cars passed. We were told it was an extremely hard hitch.
With 3 miles to go we run across a NOBO and as we introduced ourselves the man immediately goes, “you guys did the PCT in 2021” and we agreed and I asked him his name as he looked oddly familiar and he said “Always”.
I immediately remembered who he was, he was a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and we had bonded over that. I asked him, “You did Peace Corps right?” And he agreed. We all laughed at remembering each other and stood talking for a good 15 minutes about what we have been doing since and how trail looked going the opposite ways. Always had flipped around trying to make the trail work with the bad weather and told us he thought SOBO was the way to go. This made me proud of our decision to go this way.
We parted ways and told each other good luck and happy trails and we continued on.
When we got to the Pass we realized why people said we were in the middle of no where. I mean. Gravel highway. No people.
We decided we would send Inreach messages to the people who provide shuttles in town and were surprised we heard nothing back.. Hmm that seemed unusual since everyone said they were very responsive.
We stood around and sat around for a while and a few cars came through but going in the opposite direction. 8 PM rolled around and we decided to make dinner by building our own little wind blockade.
As we were eating our dinner, we heard a car coming down the road we came from trail. Once I stood up, I could see it was a motorcycle.
I stood at the edge of the fence and waved at the person coming roaring down the gravel road and notice they were wearing a clown mask and had orange hair. The clown mask was reminiscent of the movie IT. If anyone knows me, they know I HATE scary movies.
As I was waving to this individual, he zoomed past me, didn’t look over and kept his back up right and flew down the mountain gravel road.
I’m not sure he saw me but Journey and I stared at each other both thinking “What just happened?”
I then ran to the other side of the pass to see if the man rode down the highway and didn’t see nor hear the motorcycle.
Journey and I got major creeps.
We then realize that our Garmin inreach devices are not receiving messages as we tried to message each other and nothing went through.
I started to feel even more creeped out. What is going on?!
Around 9 PM we see a person coming down the mountain NOBO and both of us felt excited because maybe this person called ahead and a shuttle is coming for us.
As the person gets closer, I holler out Hi and the person responds, “Brown Sugar, Journey?” Immediately I knew it was Gator from the PCT.
I hollered out to her and got up to give her a hug. No friggin way!?
I knew she was getting close to me as I saw her post a comment in the Far Out app a few days prior. I sent her an inreach message this morning but since the inreach stopped working and she lost service, she wasn’t able to reply.
She claimed she saw my location and had hopes that she would see us either at the pass or in town. She had hopes we would take a shuttle in town together.
How wild.
It was a blast all chatting and catching up. I so wished she was going SOBO so we could be a little tramily again.
Around 9:15, we decide to go back up the trail and find a camp spot since it was unlikely someone would come since our messages aren’t getting out.
Just as we are heading up the mountain, we hear a car coming. I race back down and one car zooms ahead without looking and the other one goes up the other mountain and then stops. I race over and the lady reverses the car and I asked if she was Jen from town.
She was.
Get this… she got Gator’s text from a couple days ago letting Jen know she would get there tonight or tomorrow morning and Jen didn’t get any text from anyone but had a feeling someone was there and wanted to go check just in case they couldn’t get in touch. She then whipped out sodas and peaches for the road for us.
So she drove all the way up and we were so thankful. I couldn’t say thank you enough to her. Camping at the pass wouldn’t be terrible but I still had creepies from the clown so I was ready to get in.
Jen was full of energy and told us about this small town of Leadore.
She dropped us off at a park to camp and then came back and brought us all leftover pasta. I mean, the sweetest.
We shoved our faces with pasta as we got ready for bed and I can’t believe all that had happened today. Two PCT friends, a weird clown, and a very lucky ride into town.
Wow.
It’s almost midnight now and I’m pooped. We will stay in town tomorrow to get all chores done then head out the following day!
Night night.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 