Distance hiked today: 20.2 miles / 32.5 km.
Today we're heading into Steven's Pass to resupply. Giggles and I don't usually hike together all day, we each leave camp whenever we're ready (around the same time frame) and see each other throughout the day at water sources, lunch, and might hike together for sections when our paces line up. It's nice to not stress about waiting for/catching up to someone - we're essentially solo hikers that coordinate, and it's been really fun to stick together since Oregon. We're ahead of the biggest "bubble" of hikers, so there aren't a ton of thru-hikers around.
The trail led right into the top of the ski resort hill, and I made my way down to the lodge where I met up with Giggles. But there's no store here, so we hitched into Skykomish to resupply, about 20 minutes down the road.
Even here there's only a gas station to buy food at, and I don't have my next box yet, so it was a challenge to get enough food. It was also expensive (as all of these tiny resupply locations have been), and for some reason the attendant kept informing me that "This will cost a lot!" as I piled tuna packets, bars, nuts, sausage etc onto the counter. Yes… I am aware… And you set the prices. I literally have no choice but to buy food here so I can eat for the next 4 days. Because none of this food is dried, it's heavy. I had to limit what I bought so that my food bag wouldn't be excessively heavy. But I did pack out a bottle of mayo to go with my tuna and sausage which was a great move.
We got burgers before hitching back to Steven's Pass, then hiked out 2.4 miles to a tent site in the evening. It was dark by then, and we walked without lights for as long as we could, using our spidey-senses to avoid tripping on rocks, until finally it got ridiculous and I turned my light on so I didn't sprain an ankle less than 200 miles from the finish.
As we set up our tents, a mouse climbed onto Giggles' pack and was running around my tent. So I set up my bear line to hang our food away from these "mini bears".
Total trail mileage: 2467.6 miles / 3970.4 km