Day 197

Day 197 (pct 87): 34 miles

Terminator was a big help is making us get up earlier than usual. I got separated from the 2 of them pretty early in the day cause we started out with a nice 3,500 foot climb and I’m slower on the uphills.

Around 1:30 a southbound hiker said she had a message for me. They were going to take the bus into town at 6:15. Initially I was a little upset cause if I had known that originally I would’ve gotten up early to be there on time but that lasted about 3 seconds then I decided that I was going to get to the road and get lucky with a hitch and surprise them.

I had to average a little more than 3mph to get there by 7:30 which I felt like would give me a good chance at a hitch. I tried to turn on a David goggins podcast to get me amped up a little but Spotify decided to delete all of my podcasts I had downloaded. This happens frequently. I wasn’t happy. But I turned on some music and got rolling pretty good.

With about 10 miles remaining my left foot started to hurt again and I was getting pretty drowsy. Because of this, I was moving pretty slow. I laid down on a log for about a minute then snapped. “You’re being a bitch. You gotta get moving.” I then turned on a slipknot heavy playlist and started moving pretty fast.

I was still on pace to get there a little before 8 with plenty of daylight. Then, with 5 miles left I stepped on a rock perfectly on the ball of my foot where I jammed it into the rock jumping the river a few days ago. It hurt bad. I was limping really slow for about a half mile then broke down and popped some ibuprofen. It was only my 3rd time doing it on the year. I hate using it cause it works and I don’t wanna get used to that.

I ended up making it to the road around 8:30. There were no cars there and I kinda lost hope. I was getting ready to set up camp but went to go to the bathroom first. As I was in the privy I heard a car noise. I hurried as fast as I could and ran out to the road. It was a truck going in the opposite direction.

I started to set up camp then a car and the same truck came back. I ran to the road again and got a ride from the truck. It turned out he had to go help someone unlock their keys in their car. So big thank you to the lady that locked your keys in your car or I wouldn’t have gotten a ride until morning.

When I got into stehekin (very cool town only accessible by water) I looked at both campgrounds but couldn’t find my partners. I ended up just camping and saying I’ll find them in the morning after I pick up my food box.

I wish I would’ve gotten a video but I saw a bird performing an aerial assault on a bee. It was a cool battle to watch. The bee tried changing directions in a dime like 6 times but the bird still won and got dinner. Classic birds and bees story

Song of the day: spit it out-slipknot