Legs and Borders

I walked today way longer than expected, not quite sure why as the path was quite steep. I managed to catch up with Tank Top, Fomo and Lucky in the afternoon thanks to a trail magic they stopped at. I joined them there for a bit to have a soda, some crisps and an apple it was one of those unexpected treats that helped me push few extra miles in the afternoon. We decided to camp by the Bear Lake, mosquitoes are back with full force in the area, everyone set up their tent real quick and hid inside from the swarms of angry insects. We are only 20 miles away from the Road 23 which has a shuttle running (from today actually) three times per day back and forth to the Trout Lake, the aim is to get on the second shuttle at 11:30am but if we won't manage to be there in time we can try calling trail angels to arrange an extra pick up. Patchy snow is back, nothing serious yet though, bu its just a matter of time before we will be walking long distances on snow covered trail. I can't wait,...

"We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like, we envy only members of our reference group. There are few successes more unendurable than those of our equals"  Alain de Botton. Very straight forward day. We woke up at 7am had a breakfast at Swede's house after that he dropped us off at the Bridge of the Gods where we said our goodbyes. The walk through the bridge was great, people were waving at us from the cars it felt like we really accomplished something special even though it's still quite a way to go. It was mainly uphill from that point, bridge is the lowest point on the entire PCT so it couldn't be any different. Day was hot and humid, I ended up pushing 25 miles and setting up the camp by a disused road in the forrest. Tank Top with Fomo and Lucky ended up pushing few additional miles, I'll try to catch them up tomorrow.

Today was my first actual day off on the trail. After discussing the options with Tank Top, Fomo and Lucky we all decided to spend another day at Swede's house which he and his wife graciously allowed us to. It was a pretty steady and uneventful day, everyone was either sleeping, eating or just sitting around browsing internwebs. I've watched 'Return to Space' with Elon Musk about his SpaceX program on Netflix it was quite interesting. About 4pm we decided to head off to town in a car Swede borrowed us, we went to Mod Pizza, a Subway style pizzeria where you could build your own pizza from scratch and after that went to the cinema to see 'Thor: Love and Thunder' which thanks to Taika Waititi direction and performances by Natalie Portman, Russell Crowe and Christian Bale as a villain had a certain appeal to it. We went back to Swede's house after the movie where we got offered a rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream. Swede told us about his life as a police offi...

Today we came down to Cascade Locks, the last stop and finish line for the state of Oregon. Once we will pass through Bridge of the Gods we will be in Washington and the last 500 miles of PCT will begin. Today myself, Tank Top, Fomo and Lucky took an alternative PCT route from our campsite leading through Eagle Creek and it's many amazing waterfalls, most notably Tunnel Falls which had the trail running behind it through a tunnel carved in the solid rock, it was spectacular. There was many day hikers walking six miles each way on a very steep and exposed cliff edge to see it. We reached Cascade Locks around 3pm where Swede, Tank Tops friend took us to this house for the night. We did our usual chores, resupplied and then our host and his wife prepared us a delicious dinner with rice, fresh vegetables, grilled chicken and venison from the deer he has hunted. There was triple chocolate ice cream for desert, then we went down to the garden to chill out before heading to bed. We ate so...

"I can't thru hike the PCT because I have too many kids" Will. Today was a bit of a rollercoaster, it all started according to plan I hiked seven miles to Timberline Lodge right in time for breakfast buffet. Then I sat down with Quicksilver, Sonic and Watts and we had rightfully praised metric tonne of food consisting of fresh fruit, smoked salmon, ham hock, scrambled eggs, waffles with whipped cream and maple syrup, sausages, bagels, crossaints.. (the list goes on, don't know why I decided to list all of the above, but it was all delicious). We sat there for two hours or the entire length of buffet having many plates of it. It was honestly heaven on earth. The building itself was stunning as well, built in 1936 all wooden and full of history - it is definitely one of the main manmade highlights of the trail for me. Soon after more familiar faces started to arrive, Fomo and Lucky, Ravi and Sunrise which I haven't seen since Lake Tahoe finally caught up! Tik Tok an...