Day 147
Miles: 14
From the Dinsmores’ to Grizzly Peak

The rain is back, I slept badly in the Dinsmore dormitory, and we have no food. I can’t do anything about the first two, but I’ll need to fix the last one. We tried to forward one of the boxes we never picked up in Oregon, and it didn’t make it. (I’ll be darned if J throwing away the package tracking numbers two months ago isn’t still biting us in the ass. Don’t throw away your tracking numbers.) There isn’t even a real convenience store in this “town”, so it looks like this is going to be our first complete resupply out of the Hiker Box.

For some reason, instead of being filled to the brim with oatmeal, mysterious powders (hummus? milk? protein powder?) and unindentifiable dehydrated mash dinners, there is actual food in the hiker box. Boxes, really, an entire corner of the room has been taken over by discarded gear and unwanted food. We sit down and start putting a resupply together. Instant potatoes, Korean MREs, an entire, unopened jar of cashew butter, freeze-dried mangos, trail mix, more trail mix, very stale tortillas, an entire stash of Snickers bars from Switch – you might say this is a mixed bag. By the time we finish raiding the hiker box, there is not much left besides oatmeal, unidentifiable dehydrated mash, and mysterious powders.

With that done, our town chores are complete. Clothes washed, a shower, food. Switch, Biscuit, J and I go to the little diner and wolf down huge plates of food. Jim, the guy with the gold van who picked us up yesterday, gives us all a ride back to the trail. We pop out our umbrellas and head out into the rain.

It’s uphill, it’s gray, it’s wet. J isn’t feeling well, I’m not feeling well. Spelled out in pinecones next to the trail is a sign that says: 4000 km. Wow.

When it’s cold and wet there’s no point in stopping, so we don’t, and even with a 1 o’clock start we make fourteen miles by dark, reaching the top of Grizzly Peak in dim, inpenetrable fog. There’s a chance for sun tomorrow – don’t set your hopes on the weatherman, Gizmo.

March of the umbrellas

Fairy circle

We’ve come a long ways, baby.