Mile 2,368 to Urich Cabin (2,344)
Miles: 24
Slept in again this morning until 7:30AM. I still think that if I'm tired enough to keep sleeping, it's probably my body sending me a message. Anyhow, now that I'm out of the North Cascades and shooting to put in 22-25 miles per day, I don't feel the pressure.
The southbound 300 mile marker! Actually 330 with the hike up to the Canadian border, but who's counting?
It's actually pretty exciting to realize that I've adapted enough to the trail, in body and attitude, that 22 miles per day feels like a relaxed pace. I mean, I still have to hike all day long, but now I'm sleeping in, taking breaks, and chatting with anyone willing to stop for a moment. Plus, at the end of a 22 mile day, my body feels tired, but not totally shredded like it did at the outset. I no longer have to shift constantly when I sit down at the end of the day for fear of my muscles freezing in place. I no longer put off removing my shoes at the end of the day for fear of the new blisters I may find.
I ran out of Aqua Mira, my water purification chemicals, today. I had anticipated drinking a gallon of water per day but I think I've been drinking twice that much. I guess that I'm going "no filter" for the next handful of days. This is especially challenging because, unlike Northern Washington's abundant water every half mile, Central Washington has 6, 8, or even 12 mile stretches with no water, making my lack of purification even harder since I'm stuck with whatever rare water source I come across, and I can't just pick the really clean-looking ones. The appearance of the water is probably a poor indicator of its safety, anyway, but I still don't like drinking unpurified yellowish slow-flowing pond water.
I put my earbuds in early today and continued listening to "How Google Works", the audiobook that I've been working on since finishing Anansi Boys. My SOBO comrades, James, Jabba, and Badger, are all keeping up their quick pace ahead of me, and Hayden is half a day behind me, so I hiked alone for the day. I didn't mind today's solitude. I ran into half a dozen NOBO's, going 4 or so hours at the most without seeing anyone. I just kept my headphones in and listened to the Google book, trudging up forested hills and down forested hills. Northern Washington might have been brutal, but it was constantly beautiful. This section, so far, has a well maintained soft trail but stays in the woods with few views.
For lunch, I ate jalapeño and cheddar Cheez Its and Cookies & Cream Chex Mix while sitting in the dirt in the middle of the trail. I had just summited my major climb for the day and, upon discovering all views obstructed by the GD forest, I plopped down in the middle of the trail to eat. At that point, the trail had been a bit washed out so was a deep V shape. I unpacked my backpack, using my clothes stuff sack as a pillow, and sat with my butt in the crook of the V and my legs resting on one side and my head and back on the other. It was surprisingly comfortable and a great way to elevate my feet for a bit. I sat there for a while, continuing to listen to my book, enjoying the sunshine, and testing myself with a blind taste test to see if I could differentiate the jalapeño Cheez Its from the cheddar ones. Out of my five attempts, I was: correct, correct, incorrect, correct, correct. Unfortunately, the results are inconclusive since I can't run a t-test on such a small sample size. I'll have to continue the test tomorrow (so long as my Cheez Its supply holds out).
I did see Mt Rainier for the first time today. As one of the NOBO's described it, "it's a surprisingly shy mountain for its size." Well put, strange NOBO who looks like Dwight Schrute's beet-farmer cousin from the show The Office. Rainier was encircled by a skirt of clouds and just its rounded top was visible.
I continued to space out and listen to the Google book all afternoon. Hiking alone isn't the most intellectually stimulating activity. I'll think about things that I want to do when I return from the trip, like my ideal cheese-making wine fridge set-up or how I'd like to help a friend with MBA program applications, but I haven't been pausing to take notes and I don't have someone else to respond to the thoughts, so eventually they drift away.
Serendipitously, a few minutes after I finished the Google book, I arrived at my endpoint for the day: the Urich Cabin. It's a public cabin maintained by a local snowmobiling club. In my hiking guide notes, there are comments from past hikers who have happened upon wild parties in the cabin. Ex: "some 45 year old dude got so hammered that he threw up in the middle of the floor and cried all night." Tonight, there was no one there. I was actually pretty happy to have the place to myself, and hoped that no one would show up later. It's a unique experience to stay in an small old log cabin in the woods alone. I ate my dinner of two beef ramen packets and a pack of Whoppers (the malt balls that look just like deer turds) on the cabin's front deck. The deck overlooks a meadow, very originally named Government Meadow. There's a large sign near the cabin that declares that a wagon train stopped and rested for two days in the meadow in the fall of 1853 before continuing on and descending into the Puget Sound area.
I used the outhouse (such luxury!), and packed my food into my backpack and hung it from a beam inside the cabin. In addition to party-people, the cabin was noted to have mice. I found a bungee cord to hang my backpack. Fingers crossed that mice can't climb bungee cords, though I'm 90% sure that a bungee cord is a mouse red carpet.
Setting up my bed in the cabin's loft and beginning to write this entry, I heard thumps from outside. At first, I thought that the partiers were arriving to begin their all night bender, then I looked out the window directly above my head. Partiers of another sort had arrived and were scattered across the meadow chowing down on grass: a massive herd of elk. Speaking with my Uncle John a couple days ago, he had asked me if I had seen any elk yet. "Well, I've seen tons of pesky deer that try to steal your gear from your campsite and drag it into the woods so that they can lick the salt off of it. Plus I saw one deer with antlers. That's what an elk is, right?" No, I was informed, elk are an entirely different animal. Deer are to elk as American singles are to extra sharp cheddar. Ok that's a stretch, but I'm food-obsessed and the idea is that elk look like creatures of the forest while deer look like a cheap imitation.
The elk are chewing excessively loudly and it sounds like they're licking or gnawing on parts of the cabin. Rude. There is a baby elk (doe? elkling?), though, who is being very funny by standing directly in the circular iron fire pit in front of the cabin. Whenever an adult elk comes over, the baby jumps out of the fire pit and gives them space. Then, when the adult leaves, the baby gets right back in the fire pit.