Ended up falling asleep probably around 1:30am this morning. Because of this I didn't wake up until 7:00am. Got packed up and Lucinda made breakfast for everyone. (thanks again!) They were not going to head home until this afternoon, so Travis gave me a ride back to Winthrop so I could hitch up to the trail.

I turned on my phone and Travis said that cell service "pops up when you get to the stop sign". Sure enough, there it was a text message from Texas Poo popped up on my phone, sent about 20 minutes earlier.

"Missed you by a day in Winthrop..Congrats Man"

I wrote him back saying I was headed back to town and then leaving. Travis dropped me off at the hostel and TP came walking up the street. It was good to see him again. He finished a couple days ago. He wasn't going up into Canada, just to the border and then 30 miles back to Hart's Pass, then out. He was going to meet his cousin at Hart's Pas, but due to the weather, just bailed from there and made his way to Winthrop.

I mentioned getting a new hat at the 2nd hand store nearby. He pointed down to his acid washed skinny jeans "same place, I was so tired of wearing hiker clothes". He got kidnapped by the bachelorette party that was staying at the hostel last night. They adopted him and he went out on the town with them. He looked to be a little worse for wear this morning.

I said something about probably having enough power for the last stretch and TP offered up his USB battery, since he didn't need it now. I told him I would hold it in Portland which meant he would have to come pay a visit.

Said goodbye to Traivis and TP, then walked to the edge of town. The edge of town had a softball game starting. At 10:16am I held up my "Rainy Pass" and "PCT" signs. At 10:19am a car made a u-turn and flashed its headlights at me. Well that was easy.

It was a couple named Bill and Triss. They were on their way back to the Westside. They were PCT aware hence me having my "PCT" sign probably helped. We had a nice chat up the hill. The nice Winthrop weather turned gray pretty fast.

When they dropped me off in the trailhead parking lot it was slightly sunny. Not what I was expecting at all. Although they had dropped me off at the northbound trailhead, I had already walked this on Friday. I have a habit of if I get to a place where I'm hitching out, I always go to the place where I will probably get dropped back off at. All my steps from Mexico connect and this is the last place they could have gotten messed up at. (Knock knock I don't have to go out at Hart's Pass for some reason).

Walked a whopping .4 miles and stopped again because it was the 2600 mile mark. Apart from the end, this is the very last one I had to take my photo at. I think I can remember almost all of the 100 mile increment photos I have taken. The last ones sure took a while. In Northern California and Oregon I was knocking them off every few days.

Saw a few southbound hikers today. One had gone up to the border, wasn't ready to be done so now is hiking south for a while until the weather gets bad. He told me Brownie is about six hours ahead.

Stopped at Cutthroat Pass for a snack. Spent too much time there because my body heat dropped and it took a long while to get warm again. It sure would have been a cool place to camp up there, but not today.

The snow started coming down more and the wind picked up a bit. I had to stop at one point and change shirts, plus put on my rain pants. This was the cold/wet that I was worried about. Having my shirt off in blowing snow is no fun. I went back to a Central Oregon pace to get warmed back up.

After dropping toward the Methow River the sky opened up with blue sky in places. Funny how it makes you feel warmer just seeing blue sky. Got to a neat little camp but had to keep moving on. Pretty much am just going to keep hiking if the weather stays good. This was the same reason I didn't camp at the Methow River even though that would have been enough miles for today. I pushed it another three miles or so and found a little sheltered campspot near the Brush River.

Made dinner and tried drying out my gloves. I really should have brought dishwashing gloves.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention yesterday that there was a jorts kickball game going on that I could have been a part of. It sounded like a lot of fun (even though I didn't have a pair of jorts), but I decided against it since the last thing I want to do is mess up my foot/etc so close to being done.

Tomorrow it is about 13 miles to Hart's Pass. I'll try and push past it if the weather is good, or at least hikeable.