Destination: Trout Lake
Miles: 14.5 (plus 3 off trail miles)
Cumulative Miles: 1914
Another day in the green tunnel. It was cold, but not unbearable, and it only lightly sprinkled on us twice, for less than ten minutes.
We knew we had to drop down to Trout Lake to get our resupply box, so every road we crossed was a temptation. We scanned the maps and saw several options that would take us out of the cold and down into a warm cafe, hotel, or even grocery store. We debated hitching with each road crossing, but ultimately made it to our desired road before hitching.
We even (very reluctantly) passed up a ride offer from a gentleman out supporting a PCT thru-runner. (These facts are a little gray) the thru-runner is Bob Holtel, author of "Soul Sweat and Survival", an 80 year old man doing a two season thru-run of the PCT. His book tells the tales of his first 3-season thru-run just over two decades ago.
After passing up the offer, we hiked the final 5.5 miles to our desired road, which was dismally empty of cars. We put our rain jackets on, and started the 13.5 mile walk down to Trout Lake. After 30 minutes a car passed, but didn't stop. Another 30 minutes and we found ourselves sitting on the forest road discussing what we would do if we failed to get a ride. Before settling on a plan, a mini-van pulled over to give us a ride the rest of the way.
As we reached the road, we came across a cache of goodies put together by the kind folks at Trout Lake Abbey, a zen temple of sorts. We enjoyed fresh fruit, and new toothpaste to replace our nearly empty supply.
Our filter is toast. A new filter takes about 2-3 minutes to filter 1 liter of water. Our filter now takes nearly 30 minutes to filter one liter. This means that if we want to filter enough water for a full day, we need to filter for about 3-4 hours. Our replacement cartridge is a week or more away.
This is why PseudoGnome, aka DK, aka Jacob C. is our hero. He drove from Portland to Trout Lake at the last minute to bring us a new cartridge for our gravity filter. REI was all out, so he brought us his own cartridge, driving 90 minutes one way to help make our hike easier. Yay PseudoGnome!! No giardia for us, thanks to you.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Interesting...still good folks/angels helping you out. You all are on the downside of the mileage and that must make you feel good even if you are climbing upward on the trail.
ReplyDeleteJourney on with blessing of safety and Jacob your hero.