Mon. July 11     Miles today: 25.4      Total so far: 1,075.2             Washington Section H

It rained off and on all night, but we were fine under our tarp and comfortable on the soft hay.  Just as we were preparing to get up, it stopped raining, and a nearby coyote started making some very weird howls.  Was he sad or glad??  No way to tell.  But we felt GLAD, because it was so much easier to pack up with no rain!

As we started out at 5:30, the clouds were very dark and gloomy, but low on the horizon we could see a gleam of sunrise!  That was VERY encouraging to us thru-hikers who had just put on our last pair of DRY socks!  We still had to do a lot of walking through wet huckleberry bushes hanging over the trail (and some drippy hazelnuts, too),  but we were wearing rainpants, so we didn’t care.

All during the morning, the clouds were still very gray, but there was no more rain.  We passed various lakes and roads, with an occasional gleam of sun into the forest.  We cheered for each gleam, even though at first they faded quickly.  By noon,  the sun was definitely having fun playing peek-a-boo with the clouds, and we finally got a glimpse of Mt. Adams, wreathed in clouds.  We stopped to cook, and most important, to dry our gear, at the junction of Road 23 and the PCT.  Some SOBOs were there, too, waiting for a ride to town.  They said a lot of hikers hitch a ride into town here, to save carrying so much food.  Hmmm!  Maybe we should have planned for that, too.  Oh, well.

While WE were enjoying our mochas and freezedried turkey tetrazzini, the BEES were enjoying the clover flowers all around us, and the pretty BUTTERFLIES were enjoying….our wet, stinky socks we’d hung up to dry.  Pheeeeew!  Those socks smelled awful to us–did they smell sweet to a thirsty butterfly?  Meanwhile, the SOBOs got a ride to town.

After lunch we began the long climb up into Mt. Adams Wilderness, and met some Forest Service trailworkers.  They were trying to create more water drainage channels.  Needless to say, we thanked them “MUCHLY”!  Gradually the trail became less steep, and more alpine-looking, and finally, there it was–Mt. Adams!  The PCT joins the “Round the Mountain” trail here, and we spent the rest of the afternoon doing just that.  We loved the ever-changing views of Mt. Adams and the huge, interesting rock formations by the trail, plus wildflowers, of course.  No matter where we looked, it was beautiful.  The only problem was–mossies.  Arrrgh!  I had to put on “full mossie gear” in order to eat supper.

At sunset, we found a nice campsite on soft grass in a stunted gove of mountain hemlocks.  Needless to say, we put up the net tent under the tarp!  Bill was very tired because of so much uphill today.  He is not able to hike at his usual speed, and his feet are aching.  He finally decided that the ache in his feet was plantar fasciitis, which means he needs to really stretch his feet and lower legs, and he figured out a trick to help with this.  He took one of my trek poles (he doesn’t have any of his own), put his foot in the loop on the handle, and pulled on the pole to stretch his foot.  It seemed to really help.

The sun went down, and I was almost finished writing up my notes for the day, when suddenly something crashed into the net tent right next to me. It was a tiny, brown, furry creature, a bit bigger than a mouse, and it looked quite shocked, for a second, before it recovered itself and went BOUNDING (not running) away across the grass.  I had no idea what it was.  (Found out later that it was a kangaroo rat.  They usually live on the OTHER side of Mt. Adams, where it’s much drier.  I guess this one was lost??).  Anyway, I finished up and snuggled into the sleeping bag.  Bill was already zonked out.  I really prayed that he would feel better soon.  We are not able to hike as fast, because he is so tired all the time and doesn’t feel like himself.