Day 127

Mirror lake to HWY 242 and McKenzie pass - 25 miles

Total - 1985.3 miles

It poured all night. I didn’t think it was a huge deal until I saw the river flowing outside my tent and I knew it was gonna be a wet one. Marc’s tent had flooded and had a lake right under his pad. I told everyone even if it’s raining I’m still going as MY MOM WAS COMING!!!!!! Just a lil bit excited. So I packed up in the drizzle and headed out in the dark cold rain. I loved it. I don’t mind it raining and me getting soaked as long as I know I’m going to be in a town that day to dry everything off one way or another. So everything was soaked basically but the important sleeping quilt. Within 30 minutes Marc had caught up to me. He had a rough morning due to his blisters and his tent being drowned in water from the incredible flow. He quickly was enjoying himself again until I told him I wanted to see how many miles I could get done by 12. He was not too thrilled to hear that but I was on a mission to beat my old record of 19 as well as it would get me quicker to mom as well as I wanted to catch rocklicker and assert my dominance as he was 2 miles ahead of us. It was a one sided competition that he had no idea about lol. I do feel bad as it shouldn’t be a competition but it’s still fun. It’s nice to really test my physical limit only when I’m going into town and have a zero planned. So I was cruising. I officially thought I could get 20 by 12 about 4 miles out with an hour and a half to go. Then we hit lava fields on a steep incline around the sister mountains. That didn’t slow me down one bit as I charged up the 20 switchbacks panting like a Mastiff feral for that 20. I was passing day hikers, pcters, weekend backpackers all for the glory of 20 miles. It was 3500 foot day of elevation unlike the 19 I did which had less than 3 I believe so I was earning it. I technically got out of camp by 5:45 so my goal was 20 miles in 6 hours and once I got closer I tried to push to 21 by 12. Lava rocks had me tripping, cursing, saying the most foul things but I was determined. By golly I got my goal. I nailed it just in time and I have never been so happy. It had poured on me all day on and off as well so now it was time to sit under a tree and eat something. Shivering I had one of my favs, Thai chili tuna with cheese and mayo on a tortilla. The Thai chili tuna will change your life. It is easily the best thing out here right after candy. Rocklicker and Marc caught up and I told them my accomplishment. Marc gave me sarcasm which I didn’t appreciate lol. We then hobbled our way down the rest of the four miles to the road. We met these day hikers who were hilarious. They were asking a ton of questions about our journey, one of them being what was our favorite part. Easily forester with my dad DUH. I somehow got on the topic that when dad tells me he’s proud of me I always tear up. They proceeded to ask Marc and rocklicker if their dads did that or something that they said before they left or during the trip that stuck out to them. Rocklicker answer was right before he left his dad said “welp I hope you find what your looking for.” That had me cracking up. Marc said it’s just regular talk with his lol. The woman then tried to get her guy friend or husband who is a dad to tell the guys that he’s proud of them. Funnily enough, he gave a long speech of how if he was our dad he would be but he doesn’t know us so he can’t say it without it being genuine. LOL. It was a funny interaction. We then walked through a burn zone which turned to more lava rocks for the last mile. It was the longest mile of my life. The rocks slow you down so much and they hurt but we finally got to the road. Mom was about 45 minutes out so we chilled with only a lil rain. Multiple cars stopped to ask if we needed a hitch but I was waiting for one person and one person only. Finally we hear honking and it’s the most amazing, loving, and kind person I know…. ME MADRE. Immediate hugs. I had to apologize for my smell as I haven’t done laundry for 9 days. She brought so many goodies on my request (thank you so much they were delicious). We got in the car and made our way into bend. It’s funny how you can’t really catch up with someone because she reads the blogs. So every story I tell, she’s already read. She finally got to meet some of the people I’ve been hiking with and ask them questions though. We dropped Marc off at his trail angels house that he was staying out who had unlimited ice cream and 4 dogs. Basically Marc’s heaven. He was going to test the limit of unlimited ice cream. We then had to find a place to stay which was extremely difficult as everything was $200+ a night. Which we were not about to do. We tried the motel 6 and again even that was so expensive. Rock found a place in remond which was about $100 a night which we booked and drove to. I had to pee so incredibly bad and the woman booking us in was so incredibly slow. I’ve never thought I would be my pants before but almost did. Luckily right as I thought I was gonna lose the fight she handed over the keys and I RAN to our room. The room was kinda nasty. Maybe one of the worst motels I’ve been in and that’s saying a lot especially on trail. It smelled like someone smoked and they tried to clean and failed. It would do though. I took a shower after we got settled and then went back to pick up Marc after awhile and yeti to go grab dinner. We went to a brewery and had some great conversations so far about trail and learned more about yeti. Great guy and he really opened up about some of his struggles on and off trail which is always hard to do. Finally we called it a night and dropped everyone off before driving back to Redmond. Poor mom has been driving so much for us. I greatly appreciate it as anytime with her is great especially after being in trail for so long but doesn’t mean driving aint hard.

My phone was soaked for most of the day so a lot of pictures are blurry from the rain. Also mom and I are terrible at taking pictures together so we got like none.