Friday, October 5th.

Friday, October 5th: Today's miles = 9.6. Total PCT miles = 2,485.6. Miles remaining = 177.9.

Neither the other two hikers or I in the bunk room got up during the night to put more wood on the stove so I woke up cold, as always. I didn't mind though because I didn't have to pack up my tent with wet and cold fingers. Jerry Dismore had told me the night before that he would take me to the post office in the morning to get a package I had sent to myself. After the post office he took me to the cafe in town where I ordered a veggie scramble and a bagel. Finally, he drove me to the deli where I ended up hitching  back to the trail but not before I spent most of the day loitering and eating. I ended up getting a ride back up to the pass around 5pm.

On my 9.6 mile night hike to my camp spot I realized that one year ago today I summited Mt. Katahdin, ending my AT thru hike; one year ago I was sitting in a bar in Millinocket Maine doing shots of whiskey with my closest trail friends and my mother! I spent the night dancing to the juke box and beating everyone at darts (although, my mother puts up a good fight). Turk, Bubbles, Woodstock, Boom, Baboon, and I all spent the entire evening reliving the past 6 months of our lives on the trail. In the morning I knew I would be leaving Maine and the people I had met on the trail that had come to mean so much to me. So, we all got drunk to celebrate yet also to forget the sadness of it all coming to an end... and here I was, hiking up a giant mountain on the PCT. For a moment I forgot I was on the PCT and felt almost like it could have been an Appalachian mountain I was climbing. I kind of wish it had been. The AT has a hold on me. Perhaps because it was my first long distance trail. Hiking the PCT has made me want to return to the AT and rehike my favorite sections; to spent all day at the horn of Saddleback, to take my time through the Whites, to spend ten days in the 100 mile wilderness! I suspect in a year from now I will look back on the PCT the way I now look back on the AT.