19 miles to reach Stevens Pass… we got up and out of camp by seven this morning to reach the road at a reasonable hour to catch a ride into the town of Leavenworth. The hike itself was grueling… up then down then up then down then up then down. When looking at our elevation maps of the full 19 miles, it didn’t appear to be too bad. That’s when we zoomed in to see all of the climbs.

We hiked a quick seven miles to the base of a 900 foot climb over .6 miles. Straight up. There’s a challenge within the PCT community called the ‘dump truck challenge’ where individuals race up the climb to see how fast people can hike it. On average, we saw people listing their times at around 15.5 minutes. Our group averaged around 13 minutes with the fastest time being 12.5 minutes. At the top of the climb, we were all panting like crazy covered in sweat. The cold weather rolled in and we all bundled up for the remainder of our hike into Stevens Pass.

The remainder of the hike was cloudy, foggy, and damp. We were all thankful to have a warm bed in town waiting for us.

After getting a hitch into Leavenworth, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed to our bnb. The town of Leavenworth is a funny Bavarian town that seemed more of a tourist trap than anything else but we had a pretty awesome place to stay where each of us got a bed. A rarity on this hike.

We’re now lounging about, most likely going to have an early night tonight.

Guten tag!