Friday, September 21st.

Friday, September 21st: Todays miles = 24.7. Total PCT miles = 2,219.3. Miles remaining = 444.2.

It was COLD today. I actually had to bust out my gloves during the afternoon. The fear has been put back into me. I had lost the concern that the weather might not hold out but today I found it once more. Even though the day turned out to be ok in the end, for a few hours today I was scared that it was going to stay cold. Not to say that it got particually warm at all today but it was comfortable enough to hike.

Washington is maintaining it's reputation of being difficult. I was up and hiking by 6:11 this morning. I woke up a few minutes before my 5 o'clock alarm, made my oatmeal, and packed up in time to start hiking before the sun woke up. It was the first time on the PCT that I had to use my head lamp in the morning because it was still dark out. Even with my early start I still didn't get to my camp spot until after 7pm! Washington hiking is slow. All you do is go up one giant mountain (12-15 miles of uphill) then down, and up another.  It's going to be difficult to maintain a 25 mile a day average here, but I'm going to try nonetheless. One thing that I did not anticipate for Washington was how much food I would want to eat. When resupplying in Cascade Locks I bought enough food for 6 1/2 days of hiking. I've been eating around the same amount of food now for about 1,500 miles. I was very confident in how much food to pack out but I always take a little extra just in case. I have already eaten ALL my extra food and now am down to my bare minimum. I had to dump out my food bag and sort it all into separate zipelocks; one for each day. I have just been eating and eating non stop all day. I knew if I didn't ration myself all my food would be gone by the end of tomorrow. I've never had to do this before. I always just eat what I want, within reason (for hiking) and I usually roll into town with a little food to spare. I'm not overly confident at this point that the food I have is going to be enough for another 3 1/2 days, although, it has to be. I did come across a bucket of trail magic today by a road. It had Starbursts and M&Ms in it. That helped me out a lot today. I've gone as far as to ration out my bag of M&Ms as well.

Camped with Baboon by a lake slightly off trail. It's going to be another cold night.