Day 93 | mile 2096.9 - 2127.6 | 30.7 miles

Up and catching up on blogging at 6. Breakfast is at 7:30. Phil slept until I woke him up at 7:25. “Breakfast is in 5 minutes! WAKE UP!” We packed up and walked down the hill to the lodge.

Sat at the hiker’s table. Frick (the guy who gave me douche chills) was already there. I left my stuff charging in the lobby.

Breakfast was really good! I imagined what Timberline Lodge would be like since the desert. And it exceeded my expectations, I’d say. I started off with cereal, yogurt, and fruit. Then moved on to the bangers: eggs and potatoes. Pancakes, waffles, berries, and a mountain of whipped butter followed. Breakfast buffet for president. TUFFEB!

The coffee and water was getting refilled frequently by our waitress - Wendy. Stretch, Good News, and Soulcraft joined the table as they came off the trail. At one point, another waitress came up to Good News and asked to look into his eyes. It was so weird, I thought it might’ve been a dare. Everyone was really fun to talk to and Frick turned out to not be a douche. My douchedar is broken.

I had so many pancakes and coffee. I could barely walk when we finally got up at 10. (We were buffeting for 2.5 hours!) I just waddled over to the couch in the lobby area and plopped down to digest before heading out to the trail.

We finally started walking at 11:11.

I called Alex and Selby while I still had reception. We literally walked under a cell tower, so I had full bars. Such a luxury. The trail was super sandy on this side of Mt. Hood, there were a ton of day hikers, and I had had my weight in coffee and water not too long ago. I had to pee every 20 minutes and no way to pee on the trail with all the people around. Day hikers, amirite?

There were trail crews working. The guy who was diverting people to an alternate trail really wanted to stand and bullshit for a while. He made Philip fill out a permit while flies were biting the shit out of us. Of course the trail crew guy was wearing long pants and long sleeves.

We decided to take the Ramona Falls alternate and it turned out to be a really nice place to take a break, cool off, and get water. I shook the sand out of my socks and shoes. (My pictures super suck for this. The light was terrible and I wasn't about to get up to get a better angle. Here are better ones other people have taken.)

Long uphill to Lolo Pass. I promised myself I wouldn't look at the map until it was over. It was steep, we were moving really fast, and it still just went on and on. At one point I yelled an expletive. It was swallowed by the quiet forest, and then a crow returned my call with a load caw. I thought it was the most hilarious thing and proceeded to shout obscenities at the bird. It called back every time.

(No pictures of the long hill up to Lolo Pass because no stopping, remember? Lolololol Pass.)

Lots of annoying rocky sections like this. Sometimes trail crews do something really nice and put this black fabric on the trail and put a bunch of sand on top to make it easier to walk on. That seems like a lot of work for them (where do you get the sand??), but I'm so thankful every time I come across one.

Stopped at a spring to fill up water and have a snack. Flies attacked from all angles. Did I mention that mosquitoes were replaced by biting flies? Agh. What an upgrade.

I tried so many of these berries. It seemed like they were supposed to be orange. But they were definitely just not ripe. Took me way too many of these to give up.

The berry bushes were really tall. And they scratched my bug bitten legs sooooo right. I almost wanted to walk back and walk through them again.

We decided to make it to the next flowing spring 14 miles away - Indian Springs, where the closed Eagle Creek alternate starts. Listened to Do By Friday and Roderick on the Line. Got our headlamps out at 9:15. A bright orange full moon was shining through the trees on the ridge we were walking on. Planes were flying low over us and landing at the Portland airport.

Got to the campsite a little after 10. I found the spring behind the creepy do not enter tape across the trail. The trail is closed there because of last year's fires. It gave me the heeby jeebies to be out there by myself. Collected water at the low flowing stream. Watched a moth fall in a pool of water, struggle for a few seconds, and die. I didn't do anything to help it. :(

Tomorrow I walk to Washington!