Day 124: mile 2295.4 – mile 2316.2

Elevation gain: 3,549 ft

Elevation loss: 2,223 ft

Man, was the bed comfortable at The White Pass Lodge last night! Link and I both woke up on our own at 6am, feeling fully rested even though we didn’t go to sleep until after 10pm. It had been windy enough last night that we could hear it blowing outside our cozy little cabin room, plus it rained a bit as well. It was sure nice not having to put away a wet tent in the cold, damp, wet and foggy conditions this morning. Having the big picture window, looking out at the beautiful ski mountain, drinking hot coffee, while lying in the comfy bed, was hard to leave.

But I managed to pull myself together and we met Mantis & Pants outside the Lodge at 8am. Leech Lake is right by the Lodge, and we found out that if we walked around this beautiful lake, we would reach the PCT. Much better than the .6 road walk, that’s for sure!

It felt, and looked, like we were walking in a cloud all morning. The heavy mist helped make the ponds and lakes look really cool though.

I was actually happy to walk in the forest all morning because since it was so foggy, we would’ve missed any views if there had been opportunities to see any. If the weather had been like this yesterday when we were on Knife’s Edge, that would’ve been the biggest bummer…phew! We did see more interesting fungi, though.

Link will do anything to get the perfect shot!
Black Tooth fungi

Two cool things happened…we hit the 2,300 mile marker (YOWZA!), and there was a wooden bench someone had made that all the PCT hikers have signed. It was really neat to see names of hikers we met earlier on this trip!

The clouds finally started to part at about 1:00 before we stopped for lunch by a stream we had to cross first.

After lunch we had a 4 mile climb which ended with some amazing views that we were able to enjoy since the clouds had left us…yay!

At one point, we turned a corner and, BAM…Rainier was right in front of us and HUGE! I can’t believe that it still looked so far away just yesterday when we were on Knife’s Edge, and now here it is!

We wanted to stop at a campsite that supposedly had a stunning view of Mt Rainier, but unfortunately, the clouds had rolled back in and we couldn’t even see it. 🤨 The good news is that we reached our campsite by 5:30 so we had lots of time to hang out with Mantis & Pants and just relax.

While we were eating dinner, a thru hiker named Too Hot walked by. He had flipped in Burney, went up to the northern terminus, and has now been walking south. He said he isn’t a fan of Washington so far which is completely the opposite of every other hiker we have met going south. All I wanted to say, but didn’t, is “if you think Washington is boring, just wait until you get to southern OR and Northern CA!” Super strange, though…I don’t believe it for a second. So far, Washington is pretty darn great! Thanks for coming along on this journey with us! DoubleDown