Continental Divide Trail: Days 140 - 151

Day 140

Forward progress: 21.1 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,165.3 miles

Well, I slept terribly. Not sure why. Perhaps the soda I had at dinner? But that's not unusual while I'm in towns, so I'm not sure why it impacted me so badly last night. I got under 5 hours of sleep, which is not ideal. But whatever.

The guy who gave us a ride to Augusta also gave us a ride back to the trail. The drive was just as overstimulating as before -- despite changing seats, the dog still chose me to be her chair, and the soundtrack of the drive was Mongolian throat music loud enough that any conversation was shouted back and forth -- but we got where we needed to go. Even though it was only 30 miles, the ride took over an hour, and we weren't able to begin hiking until 11:00. We've usually hiked for at least 4 hours by then.

Today, we entered the Bob Marshall Wilderness, so named for an early conservationist and environmental activist who co-founded The Wilderness Society. The Bob is known for its dense forests and high grizzly bear population, allegedly the highest in the United States outside of Alaska and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. It's also home of the Chinese Wall, a 15-mile expanse of sheer rock that makes up part of the continental divide itself.

The hiking today was easy and beautiful: sometimes, we were in expansive valleys surrounded by big mountains; other times, we were specks among massive forests. Water was plentiful, which is always a bonus. Vibes is too fast to hike with us, but I spent a lot of time hiking near Fomo and Rudy today to take advantage of group size. Bears almost never confront groups of 3 or more. Fomo and Rudy also are much better at noticing huckleberries than I am, and we slowed ourselves down considerably to pick handfuls at a time.

We're camped in the shadow of the Chinese Wall, which we'll get views of for some of tomorrow as well. We're waking up early to get to a highly-recommended overlook for sunrise. It's only a half mile ahead and another tenth of a mile off trail, but the camping was really spacious where we are now, so we stopped here for the night. As I'm writing this from the comforts of inside my tent at 8:00, it's starting to drizzle, and I'm glad to be in the trees and not up on top of a bare pass.

Day 141

Forward progress: 26.7 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,192.0 miles

Waking up at 5:30 was tough. All of us peered out into the darkness for signs of cloud cover, which we couldn't discern too easily in the tree cover, but ultimately we decided we had to just go for it.

The early start did not pay off. The view of the Chinese Wall was beautiful, and it was a lovely breakfast spot, but no colorful sunrise. Still lots of clouds. At one point on the hike up, I thought I saw a clear sky; what I actually saw was a sheer wall of clouds tinted blue by early morning. So a bit of a letdown as far as sunrise goes, but, again, a really nice view of the wall!

The first 6 miles along the wall were beautiful. To the left, the Chinese Wall loomed over us. To the right, distant mountains and heavy tree cover called to us. We all hiked slowly, partially from morning grogginess and partially from stopping to take so many photos.

The rest of the miles were... nice. Pretty, but rainy. Most of the day was on and off light drizzling -- enough to occasionally warrant a rain jacket and pack cover and prevent us from drying our tents from last night's and today's rain. The low clouds were objectively beautiful, and the mist in the air gave the scenery a kind of moody vibe that I like, but I don't enjoy being wet when I can't towel off and put on dry clothes.

You could really feel how unmotivated we were at lunch. Usually, lunch is a time to joke around and chat about how we're doing, but today, we all just ate our food in a silent circle while staring at the ground, trying not to nod off or curse the sky. At least it didn't start drizzling until near the end of our lunch break.

The last 2 miles, the rain really picked up. We got to camp, immediately set up our tents, and ducked inside to attempt to get dry and warm. My dinner was the protein bar in my snack stash that I was supposed to eat during the post-lunch miles but didn't bother while it was raining, and I wanted to eat as quickly as possible so I could hurry up and get in my tent, and I'm absolutely not going to eat in my tent in the Bob. I'm proud of myself for peeing, eating "dinner," and stashing my bear canister before getting into my tent so I don't have to leave the remainder of the night (it's 6:30). I didn't drink much water while it was raining, so I probably won't have to pee again later. The inside my of tent is wet from setting it up in the rain, and I spent several minutes in my underwear, shivering, trying to air dry a little before putting on my dry fleece layers. My soaked shirt and shorts are in the foot box of my quilt in an attempt to dry them with my body heat overnight, but I just know I'll be putting on damp clothes in the morning.

We're all grappling with the knowledge that what we were all looking forward to most in the Bob was the Chinese Wall, and it's over so early, and now we have 3.5 more days before we get to East Glacier. The half day to get to town will be easy motivation, but the other 3 days... I'm not sure how we'll get through, especially if it keeps raining. We can't even hang out or play cards or attempt to uplift each other. We're just hiding in our tents, listening to our own music and playing whatever offline games we have on our phones. I'm glad I have a sudoku app to keep me entertained.

Tomorrow had better be simply balmy.

Day 142

Forward progress: 27.1 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,219.1 miles

Started the day wet, ended the day... damp, I guess. But spent most of the day wet.

It rained on and off all night. I'm pleased at how little water got into my tent overnight, considering the quantity and duration of rain, and I woke up contentedly rubbing my notably dry feet together. I knew they wouldn't be dry long. I wasn't going to waste my dry pair of socks on sopping wet shoes. The outside of my tent was obviously even wetter than it was at any point yesterday, and packing up a wet tent always sucks because it's heavy, but I also wasn't sure if I'd be able to dry it out before camping tonight.

It was raining pretty hard at 6 this morning. We were all in our tents, individually trying to figure out how much food we'd allow ourselves to eat if the hard rain kept up and we decided to stay in our tents all day. We're rationing pretty hard as it is, so obviously this wouldn't be ideal. Fortunately, it let up by 6:30, so we didn't have to seriously consider that option.

Even without active rain, our feet and legs were immediately wet from the tall grasses and other plants that hugged the trail and transferred water to our bodies with every step.

The first few miles took a while, since we kept stopping to pick huckleberries. They were perfectly ripe, dark purple and big, and the rain water made them extra refreshing on our tongues. The nearby bears clearly enjoy them, too, since all the bear scat we see has mounds of huckleberries in them. I also got some late-season strawberries. The others weren't looking for them, but my eyes seem to lock in on the telltale red runners before I consciously know to look for them.

Around 9:00, it started raining again, and it rained on and off for most of the day. I hadn't been brave enough to put on my still-properly-wet sun hoodie this morning, so I hiked all day in just my rain jacket, which was varying degrees of effective. Sometimes, we'd have blissful pockets of time where we thought the rain was over, only for it to start back up a few minutes later. We had one glorious 30-minute period of sun, followed by the hardest rain of the day. We had several water crossings with no rock hops or log balances to get through them, and we finally just started giving up on ways to try to keep our feet above water because they were soaked through anyway.

Toward the end of the day, in the last hard rain, you could tell morale was especially low because nobody bothered picking the jewel-red raspberries from the bushes along the trail. I honestly almost cried from sheer frustration at being wet and cold. I kept fantasizing about taking a scalding hot shower and drying off with fluffy towels and sitting inside by a crackling fire and drinking hot chocolate. When I complain about stuff like this to some of my friends, the reaction I get is usually that at least I'm not stuck in some office job that I hate. But at least they get to come home from that job on a rainy day and not worry about trench foot or figuring out which of their 10 total items of clothing get to stay dry even if they would be warm to don because they need to stay dry for tomorrow or the possibility of hypothermia.

Mercifully, in the last hour of hiking, the rain let up, and the sun made itself known. We set up our tents immediately to give the weak evening sun as much time as possible to dry our tents, which we obviously never got a chance to dry today. We had all been nervous about setting up our wet stuff tonight and trying to stay warm, so at least we got our gear a little less wet.

Unlike last night, we all ate a real dinner, together, laughing. It felt really good to feel happy and relaxed after being neither of those things most of the day.

Reeeeally really hoping that this current weather holds the next few days.

Day 143

Forward progress: 23.9 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,243.0 miles

Happy birthday to me! For my 30th birthday (crazy), the trail gods gifted me sun!!!

Not immediately, though. We woke up completely socked in by clouds, condensation covering our tents so they were just as wet as they were yesterday. We decided on a late start, not beginning our hike until after 7:30, and the little ways we would procrastinate putting on our wet socks and shoes would have been funny if the icy sensation weren't so demoralizing.

From the get-go, we could see the ghost of the sun behind the thick walls of clouds, trying so hard to penetrate the moisture. Misty drops were visible in the air, so even though it wasn't actively raining, we were all still wearing our rain jackets. The wet plants around us carwashing our bodies didn't help keep us dry, either. The undergrowth around our feet was particularly egregious.

A few hours into the day, though, the sun came out in earnest. Actually, I think we just got out of the clouds, but either way, we felt warm sun on our skin and admired the sky, endless and blue and cloudless. It didn't take much convincing for us to take a lengthy pre-lunch break to dry out all our wet gear. For the first time since before Augusta, I put sunscreen on. The joy in the warmth we felt was palpable. At some point today, I even noticed that my feet felt dry. A birthday miracle.

I'm glad we'd already decided to have a relatively short day because I rolled my ankle really badly with about 7 miles left of hiking. I've rolled my ankle many times, and usually I can just walk it off, but this one forced me to sit down for 20 or so minutes, take an anti-inflammatory, administer a wrap, and question whether or not it would even be weight-bearing. I'm pretty sure I heard a pop. Anyway, doesn't seem to be broken. The guys all took a piece of my gear to lighten my load -- they each insisted on taking my bear canister, since it's definitely the heaviest thing I have, especially with food in it, but I didn't want to burden anyone with that weight, so I distributed my tent, sweatshirt, and camp shoes -- and we set an easier pace to allow me to hobble a bit before settling into a more regular cadence. They wouldn't let me hike in the back of the line just in case I needed more assistance or breaks, so we all hiked together for the last few hours, eating thimbleberries and making ridiculous sounds in the name of "grizzly bear deterrence," but actually just intending to make me laugh.

For the brief moment that I wasn't sure whether or not I had broken my ankle, I had to contemplate whether it would be worth doing potentially permanent damage in order to finish out this hike. The idea of 20+ mile days with that injury sounds absolutely terrible, but I also have fewer than 10 days left, under 150 miles, and not finishing at this point would require something serious. Is a broken ankle serious enough? I'm glad I don't have to find out.

Even with a late start, frequent and long breaks, and my stupid ankle slowing us down, we got to camp before 6:00. Our tent site is perfect: big enough for many more than our 4 tents, easy dirt to stake in without using a rock for a hammer, surrounded by live trees to help minimize condensation from the adjacent meadow, actually flat, and a tenth of a mile from a good water source.

During dinner, when I had walked back to my tent to change out of my shorts and into my sweatpants, the guys prepared a Clif bar with 3 candles -- each one to represent a decade -- and sang to me. Actually, I got many birthday songs today; we'd joked at the beginning of the day, when we were still inside the clouds, that we needed a song as a morale booster, and any time we felt wet or cold or had a hard river crossing or some idiot rolled their ankle, someone would jokingly begin to sing, and it somehow was funny every time. Anyway, they'd said they wanted to pack out cupcakes, but with a 5.5-day food carry and all of us rationing pretty hard as it is due to limited food space, there wasn't room, so we'll have to celebrate for real in East Glacier Village in a few days. They also each gave me a snack from their bag (a truly generous gesture given the aforementioned comment about food rationing) and a cute Montana pin as gifts. AND we played a few rounds of euchre to close out the night.

A truly memorable hiker trash birthday! The gifts of generosity and quality time with friends and glorious sunshine were felt in abundance today.

Day 144

Forward progress: 24.5 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,267.5 miles

Well, the dry tents were short-lived. Lots of condensation this morning, and it got surprisingly cold overnight. I put on my down hood for the first time in weeks. I slept terribly -- not sure why, was just awake between 1:00 and at least 3:00 -- but I woke up with a smile. Yesterday was good, and today would be good.

The miles we did were easy and beautiful. We picked more thimbleberries and huckleberries than we could hold. We saw bear tracks in the mud. We took a little swim in the river because it was hot and we could.

We're camped at a national forest campground 15 trail miles from East Glacier Village. It's wild that tomorrow, we'll be in park boundaries! There was some debate amongst our group about hitching to town to get food tonight -- the campground is adjacent to the highway that goes straight there -- but I feel very strongly that I want to walk into the park. But access to town food was tempting. The campground host informed us of a steakhouse 0.6 miles down the road, and there was no more discussion.  We set up our tents in an available site and booked it to dinner. Can we currently afford steakhouse prices? Not really. But we're so hungry, and my god did I devour the stuffed portobello mushroom over a creamy pesto linguine topped with a balsamic glaze and a slice of huckleberry cheesecake.

We played loads of card games at the picnic table at our campsite before resigning to our tents. All in all, a very lovely day!

Day 145

Forward progress: 15.3 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,282.8 miles

Leaving the campground was pretty easy. We were all up pretty late because of nearby highway noise, and it started again around when we woke up, so we figured we may as well start hiking instead of dilly dallying for no reason.

We always seem to forget that "low miles" into town are still miles, and 15 miles is still around 5 hours of hiking. The miles weren't anything special in terms of views, but we really enjoyed picking huckleberries and thimbleberries along the way!

The last 5 miles all trended downhill, and we found ourselves in a weird slaphappy mood, literally skipping down the trail and singing along to our own music. I had a Beach Boys album on, Vibes was singing the Hamilton soundtrack, Fomo was listening to '80s music, and Rudy was singing whatever popped into his head. Eventually, we all started screaming random town foods we were looking forward to. Like... screaming. It was good no one was coming the other way, or they would have been more scared of the group of 4 shouting "Pizza!! Hamburgers!! Ice cream!! Avocados!!" than grizzly bears.

We got to town before noon and immediately went to Looking Glass Basecamp, an iconic CDT hostel. They actually ask hikers to leave 1-star Google reviews because they've gotten too popular, and non-hiker trash travelers expect like... real accommodations instead of a place to sleep on the floor. $20 a night is cheap, and it's cheap for a reason. You can book one of the four tiny cabins for $55/night, but the rest of the hostel is very geared toward the kind of travelers who regularly dig holes to do their business in.

I ate more ice cream than I needed, but like... the ice cream place is next door. What am I supposed to do? NOT eat 5 scoops? That's crazy.

Tomorrow, Vibes and I are going early to the permit office to try to secure our backcountry campsites in Glacier for the remainder of our hike. We're booking on behalf of the others as well. The process looks complicated, but hopefully getting there on a Tuesday after a holiday weekend is enough to get us an early spot in line.

Day 146

Forward progress: 0.0 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,282.8 miles

Didn't have the most restful start to a restful day, but that's ok. I woke up around 3:30 feeling really nauseous, and I refused to get up to vomit because I didn't want to concede to illness, and I kept mentally cycling through all the worst case scenarios for what it could be. Norovirus this close to the end would be devastating. Anyway it ended up not being anything, I just never fell back asleep.

Vibes and I got up before 6:00 and got a ride to the ranger station from a woman called Monster who's not currently thru-hiking but is staying at the hostel on her cross-country drive. Monster woke up as early as we did to drive us, which was unbelievably kind, and we got to the ranger station by 6:30 -- an hour before they opened. We really wanted to be first in line to get the exact permits we wanted, since we kept hearing how few spots each site has, and it would really mess with our schedule to not get the sites we were after. The beginning few and end few sites available are fairly close together, but there's a bottleneck in the middle because if you don't get one particular site, you're forced to do a 30-mile day over some really tough mountain passes.

Our early morning paid off, and we got our desired permits!!! I can't stress enough how excited we were to get exactly what we asked for. That doesn't seem to happen too often, at least not to the hikers we've talked to recently.

Much of today has been spent doing absolutely nothing, which is excellent.

We met Luna, the owner of the hostel! She's so cool. I want to be her when I grow up. The group I'm at this hostel with is so enjoyable and inspiring to be around, too. Hostels like this seem to attract people that make me want to pursue even more adventures. One couple here just finished the CDT, and in 2017 and 2018, they biked from the northern tip of Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. I don't even like biking, but suddenly I'm like... I want to do that!! Who knows, maybe some big bike trips in the future.

We stayed up late playing cards with Monster, and even though I was the clear loser of the game we were playing, it was such a great last evening inside. Lots of laughter, lots of music, LOTS of food.

In less than 12 hours, we will be back on the trail. Just over 100 miles to go. The next time I sleep in a bed will be after I've crossed the Canadian border. My goodness, is that a crazy thought.

Day 147

Forward progress: 15.4 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,298.2 miles

Leaving the hostel this morning was so bittersweet. The building fostered some of the best and most genuine human connection I've had this whole trail, and it made me feel right at home. I had so much fun with everyone I talked to, and it reminded me that there are so many parts of the trail experience I'm going to miss so much. But leaving also meant we were entering the final stage of the journey in the best place possible: Glacier National Park.

We did not get an early start. Our mileage was pretty low, and under a third of the miles were hard hiking, so we figured we could take our time packing up and saying our goodbyes to people at Looking Glass.

The majority of today's miles were getting over the mountains between East Glacier Village and Two Medicine, a part of the park. As soon as we got to the top of the climb, we found ourselves in the giddiest moods. I actually laughed out loud to myself, audibly saying "oh my god" to nobody, smiling ear to ear at how beautiful it was!

We stopped in the Two Medicine General Store to eat lunch -- why pack out and carry extra food when we can buy it on trail? -- and they even gave us free cups of frozen yogurt! We tried to take our time there because from there, we had fewer than 5 miles to hike, and even though about half of those miles were pretty steep uphill, we knew it wouldn't take too long. We got antsy after an hour.

We made it to our campsites before 5:00, which is likely to be a trend for the next few days. Played a bunch of cards, ate a bunch of snacks, sat by the lake and watched mountain goats on the ridges above.

Anyway, if this is the "less good" part of Glacier, I absolutely cannot wait for what's to come!!

Day 148

Forward progress: 22.6 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,320.8 miles

Today was our last "big" day. From here on out, it will all be nearos.

We decided to get up at our normal time, even though our mileage was lower than usual. Just because the distance wasn't intimidating doesn't mean the elevation profile wasn't.

The weather today made me want to wear my fluffiest pajamas, grab a blanket, make a steaming mug of earl grey tea, and curl up on the couch with a good book. Instead, we had two mountain passes to get up and over. It only drizzled for an hour or so today, but any time we were above tree line, we were totally inside the clouds. Not only did this make for pretty consistent dampness and coldness, but we weren't able to see anything on the passes, which was a huge bummer. Even so, I never found myself in a particularly bad mood. The climbs weren't as hard as I thought they would be, and I get to stop worrying about wet socks in just a few short days.

Even without pushing too hard, we all got to camp before 5:00. If it were warm and sunny, we'd love to make use of the lake here, but it's definitely too cold. Such a shame, since it'd be a great swim spot. I'm sure we all got to camp so early because there weren't any good break opportunities with how cold and wet we were all day. Really only ever took breaks (other than lunch and filtering water) to pick huckleberries, made extra delicious by the rain water.

Our campsite tonight is much tighter than yesterday's. Our permits are for "up to 4 people or up to 2 tents," but the ranger said we could all use our own tents if the sites were big enough. Yesterday, we could fit all of our tents with a little wiggle room; tonight, 3 of our tents barely fit. We know a couple who's also camping at this site tonight, so Fomo pitched his tent in their spot with them, and we all agreed before that our worst case scenario would be partnering up in Vibes's and Rudy's tents, since they both have 2-person tents. Glad we didn't have to do that tonight, and hopefully it never comes to it.

I ate a pretty quick dinner. I haven't been properly warm since this morning, and all I wanted to do was put on all my warm layers and get in my quilt. I caught up on photo editing and did my daily sudoku, and now I'm not really sure what to do with my last daylight hour.

Day 149

Forward progress: 13.8 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,334.6 miles

No one set an alarm to get up this morning. I still woke up naturally around 6:30, but I let myself stay tucked into my quilt until I heard the others begin packing up.

After such a gloomy day yesterday, we were enchanted by the sunrise on the lake: fog rolling on top of the water, dusty pink skies, and families of ducks swimming in the reflections of the mountains. We watched until we were too cold to stand still.

By 8:30, I had to leave camp. With the sun still hiding behind the mountains, the temperature continued to drop as the morning went on. My socks, which I had left drying on a log and had been damp when I first exited my tent, now had a thin crust of ice. Hopefully, for the last time on this trail, I had to make the choice to put my frigid socks on instead of my dry ones because my shoes were also still very wet. It took over a half hour of hiking for my body heat to make the water around my feet feel warmer than ice. I knew the sun was out somewhere, but when I rounded a corner, I saw clouds covering a nearby valley, and because the trail was winding around so much, I couldn't tell if I was heading toward that area. For the first time since I believe Colorado, I actually cried. Like... sobbed. Loud, heaving sobs. I couldn't see well for the tears blurring my vision, couldn't hike hard for the interrupted breathing. I repeatedly shouted between sobs, "I need the sun!" My feet always struggle to warm up, but the prolonged wet cold sent me over the edge. Fortunately, I got my sun, and my feet warmed up, and I could enjoy life again.

Because of the rigidity of the permits, we had fewer than 15 miles to do, and we got to camp by 1:00. We didn't have any mountain passes today, just a leisurely stroll above Saint Mary Lake.

We knew this campsite was booked for the evening, and it was good that we got here early so we could pick our tent site before the other parties arrived. Only one was big enough for all of our tents, and even then, just barely. Some of my lines are sharing tent stakes with Vibes's tent, and Fomo has a stake under my vestibule, and all of us have some kind of overlap somewhere.

We never get to camp this early -- usually, with this kind of nearo, we're in a town and are on our first or second meal -- so we weren't really sure how to spend the time. The creek next to our campsite was too cold to swim in because it's glacier-fed, and it was too buggy to sit and play cards in the afternoon. I sat by the creek for a while and edited photos, and eventually I joined the others who were napping in their tents. I'm not really a napper, but I think I did fall asleep for 20 minutes there.

Once the temperature cooled down a bit, we exited our tents and played some cards. I'm glad everyone likes euchre, because it's become a spare time staple!

The other tent sites here are occupied by a large group of guys who do an annual backpacking trip. One of them is very interested in thru-hiking and asked us a ton of questions, and they gave us some dehydrated desserts and hot chocolate after dinner.

We are officially under 50 miles to the end of the trail. I think we'll technically do more because we want to take a different series of trails tomorrow parallel to the CDT but closer to some lakes that will add some mileage, but according to FarOut, we are 49.7 miles from the border. What a beautiful statistic.

Day 150

Forward progress: 15.8 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,350.4 miles

WOW, was today such a great day of hiking!!! Maybe I'm not tired of hiking. Maybe I'm just tired of hiking big miles. 15-mile days tend to be so much more enjoyable!

The first 6 miles looked very intimidating and constituted all of today's meaningful elevation gain. Really, it wasn't too hard at all, and before we knew it, we were on a ridge on our way to Piegan Pass. We could see Piegan Glacier for much of the ridge walk, and we probably lost 20 minutes stopping to take photos and videos. If I could just bottle the feeling of mountain layers and golden sunlight and being a speck among big rocks and snow that's been there since before humankind, I'd be happy forever.

Descending the pass was also beautiful. It felt like every switchback brought a new view. I put on Lord Huron's album Lonesome Dreams and felt like I was in a movie. Nothing quite romanticizes hiking like the songs in that album. I picked huckleberries until my hands were purple and frolicked among the ferns. It was just pure joy.

10 miles into the day, we took a turn off the official CDT in favor of a route past two popular lakes in the park that added negligible mileage and elevation to our day. We ate lunch at Grinnell Lake and all took a dip in the glacier-fed water. It was definitely cold, but not as bad as I'd thought it would be! It was one of my favorite memories of the trail.

We got to Many Glacier in the early afternoon. The area is under road construction so we're in a temporary makeshift campsite, but we're close enough to the lodge to have had lots of food and drinks. I had 3 cans of this huckleberry cream soda, and it wasn't until the last one that I noticed each one had 114% of the daily recommended sugar intake... It's fine, right? Anyway, we played loads of cards and let ourselves relax in the lounge.

I'm going to miss days like this. But days like this don't feel like thru-hiking. They feel like a really fun day hike, just with no ability to shower or change clothes afterward. I'll spend more time reflecting on this another time when I have more brain capacity and less sugar coursing through my veins.

Day 151

Forward progress: 20.5 miles

Total distance on trail: 2,370.9 miles

Today was the perfect penultimate day. Although even as I write these words, I can't believe this will all be over tomorrow.

We woke up early for the Many Glacier Lodge breakfast, which opened at 6:30. Even though we didn't have to leave early, we all agreed we'd rather spend more time at camp tonight than in a hotel this morning. We were on the trail by 7:30, so barely later than our recent starts. Even with side quests and a relatively hard 20+ mile day, we were at camp before 5:00.

Our first big climb up Swiftcurrent Pass was some of the most beautiful hiking I've done on this trail. Each switchback brought us closer to the Swiftcurrent Glacier and the bridal veil waterfalls cascading down the mountainside. We got beautiful overlooks of the glacial lakes down below. It was just beautiful, and I didn't mind those uphill miles in the slightest.

The middle part of the day was admittedly kind of boring. We're getting lots of wildfire smoke from all the fires in Washington, so some of the views were less visible than we would have liked. Lots of huckleberries and strawberries, though!

Also saw a good amount of wildlife today! Saw a juvenile moose who seemed confused at our presence and a herd of bighorn sheep grazing on berries and a buck mule deer that didn't seem to care that we were sharing a walking path and a bunch of marmots that were fat and changing color for the coming winter.

We had two multi-mile, multi-thousand feet of gain climbs today, and before starting our second one, Fomo said, "This is our last big climb of the CDT! Make it count!" And I don't think I've ever hiked that kind of incline at such a fast pace. I was sweating like crazy by the top, and I let out a victorious howl at the junction sign. I wish I'd paid attention to the time to know how fast I'd done it, but both Fomo and Rudy, who are usually much faster than I am on uphills, got to the top several minutes behind me. Vibes, who had a massive head start on us after lunch and is faster than all of us as it is, got to the top almost 50 minutes before I did.

At that junction sign, there was a "0.3 mile" (read: at least 0.5 mile) trail to an overlook of Sue Lake. I'd done another 0.3-aka-0.5 mile side quest to another overlook after lunch, but it was too smokey to have good views, so I was slightly annoyed at adding an extra mile to my day for no payoff, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do it again, but Vibes waited at the sign specifically to tell us that it was worth the extra effort. Fomo, Rudy, and I somewhat reluctantly listened to his advice, and we were so glad we did. One of the best views we've seen in the park!

At camp, we kept naming "lasts" for the trail. Last time pitching our tents. Last time inflating our sleeping pads. Last time making dinner. Last bear hangs for the guys and last bear canister stash for me. We ate a ton of extra food because we only need breakfast and some snacks for the 15 miles to the terminus. We can go a little hungry tomorrow if need be. It'll be a town day. We played a last few rounds of euchre before retiring our tents to individually reflect on this journey.

There are so many things I'll miss and so many things I won't. I re-read my journal entries from the last few days on the Appalachian Trail and seem to have had similar feelings then as I do now: I'm ready to stop hiking but not ready to let go of this lifestyle. I love the transience. I love the community. I love seeing beautiful places. I love that my biggest responsibilities revolve around hydration, caloric intake, and doing enough miles. I love being immersed in my surroundings and not my phone. And I'm not entirely sure how to carry many of these facets over to my real life.

Tomorrow afternoon, this whole thing will simply be a memory. After so many weeks of being excited for this journey to be over, right now, I feel a strongsense of panic. Am I ready to go back to normalcy? I don't really know.

And now I'm putting off my last sleep on trail.