Day 136 - Friday, September 10

Tenting on a ridge under some evergreens (mile 2502.9). Walked 28.1 miles today.

Frank left the lake this morning before me. I followed about 30 minutes later and immediately stopped to get water on the first climb of the day. As I climbed, I passed Lefty, who was packing up her tent.

A little bit on, there were some nice views and I found myself behind another hiker - it was Magnet. I hadn't seen her since we got a ride out of South Lake Tahoe. We hiked and chatted all the way up to Grizzly Peak where we had great views of Glacier Peak to the north.

She stopped here and I kept going, only to run into Frank about 10 minutes later. I told her that our friends were close by and on the next climb, we caught up to Thin Mint who was taking a break to eat. A little farther on, we caught Flavortown and walked and chatted with her until the next stream where we got water and everyone caught up to us, including Narrator. It was a chaotic reunion and we agreed to meet up for lunch at a creek a couple miles ahead. When we got there, we all sat down and ate and were joined by Catch, Noodle, and Sunshine.

During lunch, we felt a few raindrops through the canopy, so when Frank and I rolled out, we donned our rain jackets. Good thing, because we walked through a light rain for a while which eventually let up as we walked through an alpine area in the clouds.

We reached the 2500 mile marker at a stream where we got water and then kept going.

We had planned to camp near a pond, but it was early, so we hiked another 1.8 miles during which the rain returned in full force and we got pretty wet. We found a semi-sheltered campsite among a group of trees and set up camp.

It was pretty miserable. My pants, socks, and shoes were soaked and I was cold. This violated Sisyphus' rule: I can handle the cold, and I can handle the wet, but I can't handle them both at the same time. I was pretty miserable and uncomfortable. I ate dinner in my tent and then noticed that the rain was wetting through, meaning I had water on the inside walls of my tent. Frank graciously let me join her in her tiny tent and we slept there for the night.