PCT Day 6: To TOWN

Thursday, July 12 2018

Mile 27 – Hart’s Pass: 3.6 miles / 60.5 total miles walked

I slept horribly. BUT I did get up at around 1 am to look at the stars and it was insane. The milky way so bright and close and a bright yellow star in the night sky (maybe Mars?).

I got up at around 5:45 and packed up quickly without breakfast to make it to Hart’s Pass and from there to find a hitch down to Mazama.

We made it to the Ranger Station at Hart’s Pass before 8 am, crushing the last 3.6 miles of backtracking and even managing to walk a bit of new trail. At the station we retrieved our food bags from the outhouse and went to Broken Toe’s van to hang out with other hikers and wait for cars to pass.

It didn’t take too long and two guys with their two dogs gave us a ride in their Jeep. It was awesome, we had some fun conversations.

We made it to Mazama by about 11:30 and immediately went to the Inn to do laundry and shower. $2 per wash/dry and $2 for a shower. We even jogi’d some towels from the nice guy at reception. Oh and WIFI!!!😁

We pretty much hung out wearing bath towels for a good hour waiting for our clothes to get clean.

After showers and using the internet to let people know that I’m still alive we were starving. Like almost to the point of fainting, starving….so we checked out the store. And holy hell is it expensive!!!😬

I ended up getting a baguette, pesto and a day old coconut cupcake. I inhaled half of the stuff in about ten minutes and felt sick….I guess the hiker hunger is there, but the stomach isn’t yet.

After a few minutes BrokenToe showed up on his bike, which was a nice surprise. And also a Northbounder called Swallywood (?) who is about to finish the trail…..he started in May 😮 all he has to do is pick up his passport and walk the 30 miles to Canada. Which he will cover in less than a day, since his average daily mileage is around 40 (!!!!).

After sitting around at the store for a while we walked over to Ravensong’s, which was just as awesome as a few days before. Even Mike was still there, waiting for his foot to heal. And PK welcomed us all back.

I got a pack shakedown from Swallywood, but he couldn’t really take much away. The only really heavy items that will go at one point will be the microspikes and one external battery.

At around 7 we all rode bikes back to the store because they were serving local beer, burgers and ‘brauts’ (Bratwurst with several add one) 😂

So we all got food and drinks and had a blast. We seemed to be the table that had the most fun actually…