Monday, October 1st.

Monday, October 1st: Todays miles = 10.2. Total PCT miles = 2,409.7. Miles remaining = 253.8.

It's raining. Right now I am in my tent. It's 10:04pm and I have just finished eating dinner, cleaning up my stove and cook pot, and brushing my teeth. Even despite the rain and strong winds I feel safe and protected in my tent. I have seen this tent brave through many strong storms and I have (almost) full confidence in it for tonight. I woke up this morning to another beautiful day. It took me a while to get moving because of the migraine I've had for the past few days. Yesterday I took both Ibprophin and Excedrin Migraine to try and kill it but it didn't even come close. I managed to get some more Ibprophin down this morning to take the edge off so that I could open my eyes and start thinking about packing my things. Eventually I got up and moseyed my way down a ski slope and into "town". As many of the "towns" on the PCT they are not really towns. This particular spot, Snoqualmie Pass, was a ski resort with a motel, gas station, and pancake house. Despite the fact that they are not actually towns us hikers call them that anyway because they are examples of some sort of civilization. I got into town around 9:30am and headed straight for the pancake house. I ordered blueberry pancakes with hashbrowns and an english muffin. Perhaps it was too ambitious of me because I had to give my english muffin away. I think I had filled my stomach with too much coffee and was unable to eat it. I did clean the rest of the food off the plate, though, with almost no trouble at all. My appetite for the past week has been amazingly strong. I know that I have hiked 2,400 miles so far and that my body wants as much as it can get but the hunger I have felt recently is nothing like I have ever experienced. Even throughout my entire AT hike I never felt this way. People keep telling me that its because its getting cold and the mountains are getting harder. Thats exactly what happened at the end of the AT as well. Although, I experienced the opposite last year on the AT. During the end of my hike my appetite lessened. I was eating a normal amount of food; the same as if I hadn't just hiked over 2,000 miles. I don't know what it is but the habit of eating this much food is starting to get very heavy on my pack and wallet (especially when resupplying at gas stations where everything is three times the price).

I stayed in town from 9:30am to 4:30pm. I ate, resupplied, sewed my pants back together (they had become more resemblant of chaps than pants) and watched as all the other hikers within a day of me booked themselves a hotel room for the night. I wanted to get a room as well, of course, but the rooms were expensive and the owner was a dick. So, I left town as dirty, smelly, and pathetically repugnant as I entered it.

I hiked 8.2 miles up a giant mountain with a full pack to my camp spot tonight. There was suppose to be a lake up here (which was my water source for the night) but I have yet to find it. The sky was clear until the last few miles of the hike and with the darkness came the fog and eventual rain. I did manage to set up my tent just in time before the rain began, however, I still couldn't locate the lake. The fog is so thick I could not see a thing coming down the pass which was on the side of a cliff (which my luck always seems to prove while night hiking). I looked around a bit for the lake but heavy fog mixed with a head lamp = zero visibility. The lake is most likely a few yards from me and in the morning with the sunlight I will feel rather disinclined by the situation. It was a good thing I lugged too much water up this mouuntain or else I wouldn't have had water to cook dinner, that or else I would have had to put forth more effort in finding said mystery lake.