People started moving around 7am. We all were eventually up and Runs with Elk said "Uh, since all of us are up can I turn on the light?" To which came a few sleep "yes" responses.

Gabe and I got packed up and walked over to the store. The PO woman was on the front porch at 7:30am and had Gabe's box that his wife Linette had overnighted.

We ate breakfast and went outside to hitch a ride up to Stevens Pass. Runs with Elk came out and joined us. The store had a sign that other hikers had used "PCT Hiker to Trail" which I wasn't too hot on. The woman at the store gave me a large cardboard box that I cut up with my new (to me) Leatherman and I made one reading "Stevens Pass".

After about 45 minutes a minivan came out from a side road, passed us, and then turned into the store. The guy got out and said he could give us a ride in a few minutes. He looked a bit uh, unkempt. He didn't have shoes on and lacked some teeth. RWE, Gabe and I all looked at each other and said "uh, no". The guy came back about 15 minutes later and I told him we were fine...he didn't need to go out of his way, but thanks for the offer. He shrugged and drove off.

After he left, I mentioned that Portland as a band named "meth teeth" since that seemed applicable in this situation.

A truck passed us then came back. We threw our stuff in and laid down in the back of the truck. As the road started getting steeper I could feel the bed of the truck getting hotter. For fun I turned on my Google Maps to see where we were at.

We got to the pass and the guys turned into the trailhead parking lot. Gabe said his butt was on fire since the bed of the truck was so hot. I gave the guys five bucks and said thanks.

Gabe and I took off down the trail. A couple of women heading south said hi, then one saw my tent poles and said "ahh, you have a Big Agnes tent too, how do you like it?". I said it was alright, but it really annoyed me that you couldn't unzip the tent without water pouring into the floor.

She said, "Hmm, sounds like human operator error there", as she laughed.

I gave a faint "ha ha" and kept on walking. The only operator error was buying this damn tent lady.

On my laptop I found a couple Cheech and Chong comedy bits. I had been thinking about them ever since Marc Maron's great interview with them (wtfpod.com). One of the bits I had was the one where Chong accidentally gives Cheech the acid. I was listening to it and right when I came around the corner there were some older hikers. They were asking about a couple other hikers that we had passed. I had one headphone pulled out of my ear, but could hear the comedy bit in my other. As I'm talking to her I heard the punchline of the joke "....You just ate the most acid I've ever seen anyone take, I hope you're not busy for like a month". I was trying not to laugh as I was talking to her.

The funny part is that further up the trail I was telling Gabe this whole bit since he hadn't heard it or remembered seeing it. I said the above line out loud and just then I saw one of the other older hikers sitting there on a log. He said hello despite overhearing a very out of context conversation about LSD.

We got to Lake Valhalla around 1:15pm. It is a really pretty lake, but has a lot of overuse since it is not too far from the highway. There was a group of high school girls there, all of them drawing or writing in journals. One of them who must have been their leader asked me how far it was to Canada.

Gabe and I hiked a few more hours. A jet came screaming by and I tried to get video of it but could not find the plane. I saw something through the trees down in the valley and sure enough, it was snaking through a valley.

We stopped to load up on water since we were going to dry camp tonight on a ridge. We had actually gone a little too far and had to backtrack and go off the trail to get the water.

When we were about a mile from where we were going to camp, Gabe said he couldn't find his Steri-pen. (UV light thingy for making water drinkable). He said it was in his pocket and now it wasn't there. He took his pack off so he could backtrack to go find it. I started walking and he said "ohh, it was in my pack. I think I knew it would fall out of my pocket so I put it back where it belonged". Lifting something Storytime told us last night, I told him it was the Gabe that was two hours older subconsciously told the younger Gabe to take the time and put the Steri-pen back where it belonged.

Storytime yesterday talked about how he had met the older Storytime on the trail (they decided there could be two), and how he wished it was just an older version of himself...just so he could get good advice. "Don't fall in love with _____ and move to the state of ____, you will regret it!" was one of the pieces of advice.

We got to the ridge and could see a lot. Glacier Peak is coming up. If we go 20 miles tomorrow we will be on the southwest edge of it. We are supposed to have two more nice days of weather and then it is supposed to start going to crap again for a few days. Because of this I don't really mind if we do 20 miles a day the next two days. It is no fun sitting in the tent for hours on end in the rain.

Oh, I do have a new New Yorker to read and a New York Observer, so if I'm holed up in the tent at least I will have some reading material that isn't the back of food packaging.