23 miles

Didn’t sleep the best last night. I figured the sound of the river would be perfect white noise to drown out the rubbery noises of thermarests being tossed and turned on and the snoring that oh so often accompanies our camp spots but it didn’t help at all. The humidity makes everything sticky. Nothing dries out overnight and it’s so hot that I can’t literally sleep with anything less on.

It may sound like I’m bitching but a bad or uncomfortable day out here still beats any day at work.

We set off around 7 with 23 miles in our sites for the day. Crazy Eyes has already hiked out by the time we even woke up. The heat was really getting to him yesterday so I assume he set out early to beat the heat.

The day kind of goes in this pattern. A 3-5 mile climb with 2-3k elevation gain, then a ridge king walk for a bit and then a 2-3k back down and rinse and repeat. It’s the most elevation we’ve done in a while so I was really dragging towards the end of the day. Oddly enough we didn’t see any hikers all day until around 3 o’clock which is weird because usually there’s people in and around everywhere on this trail. Was kind of nice at the same time though as it felt like I was finally on my own.

Tonight we are camping just below the top of Priest Mountain. There is a shelter nearby and you are meant to go to the logbook and confess your sins and “lighten your load” before the final push to the summit.