Day 132
Start: Bear Gap
Finish: Tacoma Pass
Daily Mileage: 34.6
PCT Mile: 2366.2
I ended up not sliding out of my tent and having a decent enough sleep. On trail Honeybun and I continued to follow the ridge we were on, winding back and forth from east to west sides.
We soon crossed opposite the back side of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort which used to be my favorite Washington ski hill before they jacked up the prices and the skiing became more about money grubbing than the alpine experience. A real shame since it has good vert and some great runs. It got me thinking about late term capitalism and where many industries seem to be heading; quite the negative head space for a while.
We pretty much just ground out the day, going from ridge to ridge. There were nice ridges but nothing earth shattering after all we had seen so far on this trail, and we moved forward with good progress.
There was a snowmobiler cabin at Government Meadow halfway through the day, but this cabin was identified as the source of a 2022 hiker norovirus outbreak with fecal matter on every surface of the cabin that the CDC swiped, so it was not high on our list of priorities to enter the cabin and look around. Viewing the cabin and meadow at a distance were good enough.
We did well to power through the continuous small climbs and descents throughout the day. We were planning a few more miles than normal today, and we had to keep on pace to make it happen. We can still do breaks though since moving at 3mph or greater on average will take you a long way over the course of a 12-13 hour hiking day.
The day was mostly forest with little to see after we descended some from earlier in the day. It became more of a grind for me with little of interest. Even the forest wasn’t the best with small trees and not the swath of old growth that I had expected for much of Washington.
Every day can’t be the best, and this day was definitely not up there, but on a thru-hike you have to hike all of it, good and boring to link together the more spectacular sections of trail.
We finished out the day stopping at a stream near Tacoma Gap with nearly 35 miles on the day. We are striving to reach Snoqualmie Pass tomorrow, and did what we needed for that. The Pass will give us a much needed break that we haven’t really had since northern California, so it has been a powerful goal for us.