Day 105 | mile 2420.8 - 2456.7 | 35.9 miles

(Again, my Garmin calls bullshit on that mileage. It says I did 39.9 miles. I think the PCT maps don’t do a good job with switchbacks. And there are a lot of switchbacks in this section.)

Woke up to my camping neighbors discussing a guy walking around with a flashlight in the middle of the night. They thought i was one of them. I stuck my head out of my tent and yelled, “it was me!” They didn’t see my tent or heard me. Dead, dumb, and blind.

Left at 6:30. Dragging this morning. My Canada entry permit hasn’t been approved yet. And I kept thinking about meeting Alex at the border, then having to hike back 30 miles. Every part of me wants to quit.

Listening to The Everything Store - a book about amazon. It is the most boring book in the world.

Alex texted saying the permit was approved! He called them and they sent over the permit. Wow. What a relief. It took me a few hours to internalize it and get some spring in my step.

Lots of up and down. Lots of switchbacks. Lots of rock walking. Washington is hard. At least there's berries.

Stopped for a 10 minute, turned 20 minute, break to shake out my shoes and wash yesterday’s socks. My shoes have holes in them in the mesh and it’s letting a lot of dirt in. Mosquitoes and flies were biting me the whole time. I killed a bunch and didn’t feel bad about it.

Crossed Cascading Stream that everyone was scared about. Barely even got my feet wet.

Stopped again at Deception Lakes to dry my tent and sleeping bag and have lunch. At 5. Late lunch!

From there it was up and over Piper Pass, then Trap Pass. It sounds easy when I’m writing this, but god damn that was hard. I don’t usually sweat much, but it was just running off me. Steep and hot. And way longer than the map said. Like I said, the switchbacks are just not accounted for correctly.

Trap Lake was beautiful from up above. Unfortunately, mosquitoes were ruining the view. I hiked down angrily swinging my poles to deter them. I just want to go home.

Made it to Mig Lake at 9. Set up my tent next to Boy Scouts or something like that. WA has a lot of backpackers! Maybe it’s just because I’m here during the 4 weeks that you can go backpacking so everyone is out here.

Pasta with egg for dinner. I was falling asleep before even eating dinner. So tired. Writing the title of this post took me 15 minutes because I kept falling asleep.