Day 99 - Wednesday, August 4

At Callahan's Lodge (left trail at mile 1718.7). Walked 1.0 miles today.

Frank and I got up about 8 and were out of the hotel room about 9 with Hocus Pocus and Lenore still in bed. We walked outside and were astounded by how smoky it was. It was a concern for us. The air quality index was around 190 - unhealthy for everyone. We went to Albertson's grocery to get some breakfast and make a game plan. After some food, we went to Rite Aid and got a mask that would be able to filter some smoke particles. Once we had that, we began hitching. We had one person stop for us but they were going the opposite way we needed to go on the interstate. We decided to move closer to the on ramp and as we were walking, a lady on a side street offered us a ride to the trailhead. She was going a bit farther south to do a hike and was hoping the smoke wasn't as bad there.

We got on the trail and did the steep trail up to meet the PCT. It was slow with Frank walking slowly and resting often. Even I was coughing a bit. We reached the trail and headed through a downhill section which we figured would be easier. It wasn't.

We hiked about 0.75 miles before Frank had to use her inhaler and we decided this wasn't going to work. We walked another quarter of a mile to the road where we knew we could bail.

The entire 1.25 miles took us an hour to hike - less than half our normal speed. We walked a mile downhill to Callahan's Lodge where we inquired about a room. They were pretty expensive, but we decided to splurge and got a room. We couldn't check in yet, but we hung out in the lobby with the other hikers before moving into the dining room to do some journaling. On the table in the lobby, there happened to be a box of N95 masks with only one left in jt.  They were for hikers and I took the last one for Frank in hopes that it would work better than what she has now.

We went back into the lobby to find Sisyphus and Lefty there. We chatted with them and then at 4 pm, we went to our room. It's quite nice. It had a balcony, a fireplace, and a jacuzzi.

We closed the damper on the fireplace to keep the smoke out and then I went to the front desk to get a bottle of wine so Frank could relax in style. We each tested out the jacuzzi and then looked for a place that would deliver food to us. The restaurant at the lodge isn't open today unfortunately due to a staffing shortage otherwise we'd eat there. We were outside of the delivery range for every single place, so we had to settle for eating some of the food we had planned to eat on our next section. This was fine as we had both packed too much and I actually had an extra dinner, so I ate that. After dinner, we journaled more and watched the Olympics.