Day 156 (22 September) - Mile 2202.73 - 2226.35

Blue Lake to Road 23 (Staying in Trout Lake)

It was a pretty cold night so I stayed way tucked into my sleeping bag with my hat on and my puffy jacket and hood on. Needless to say, I didn't hear Brad's alarm go off. For some reason I woke and decided to look at my watch to see what time it was. It was 6:08 AM. Oy...I better get going. I quickly got all my stuff together and left the tent. Brad and Share Bear also quickly got ready and we were ready to hike by 7:30 AM.

Ready to hike

We started the day with a climb which was actually welcomed since it was cold and the climbing warmed us up.  Today we hike 10 miles and meet Tim so we can slack pack the next 14 miles into Trout Lake. 

We started spotting old PCT signs on the trail again today. Share Bear asked what I was going to do with all the photos of the signs. I told her that I was going to post them on my blog, so here they are:

Old PCT sign

This has got to be one of the cutest PCT signs we have seen this entire hike:

PCT sign of the day

As we hiked along I heard Share Bear yell, "Blueberries!"  I then stopped and looked and sure enough they were everywhere. We took the next 20 minutes eating our way up the trail eating blueberries, or are they huckleberries?  It doesn't really matter what they are, but I will tell you that they were delicious.

Brad picking berries as we hike

It was as we were picking and eating that we noticed a hiking pole stuck in the ground by a trail that went down to a lake. Share Bear mentioned that the pole looked like Max's. "Yeah," I said, "Tim has the same poles as well."  Share Bear acknowledged that many hikers have the same poles. As we hiked away and for further and further from the pole, I started to wonder if it could have been Max's pole.

In case you don't know, Share Bear hiked with Max and Kate from the second day on trail. I joined them sometime in May after the snakebite incident. When we all got to Kennedy Meadows we split up and Share Bear, Brad, and I were ahead of them until When they got to Lake Tahoe they decided to skip up to Ashland and skip all of Northern California (625 miles). 

We know they left Cascade Locks on Friday, 3 days before us. If they are taking it slow then it is possible it was them.

Anyway, we hiked on and just kept wondering. This is what most of our hike looked like today under the cover of a green, lush forest:

The beautiful PCT

As we hiked I noticed this in message written in the dirt:

Message for us

We interpreted as a message from Stitch telling us that he was here at midnight last night...crazy!

We made it to Tim just after 11:30 AM and decided to eat lunch before heading out. There was a woman about to hike northbound and just for the heck of it I told her that if she saw a couple hiking to tell them that Mighty Mouse was here. About 30 minutes later who do we see walking towards us?  KATE & MAX!  Wow...it was them!

Back together with Kate & Max

After a joyful and exciting reunion it was time to get hiking again. Max and Kate joined us in throwing the gear we didn't need for the rest of the day in the 4Runner and we took off for the last 14 miles of the day. 

What a joy to hike with Kate and Max for the first time in 3 months. We spent the time catching up and telling stories and having a great time which really made the miles tick by. 
We got to a trailhead and they had this crazy sign rating the hiking trail as "More Difficult"...interesting.

Luckily we are experienced hikers

With about 2 miles to go we came across Jazzman who we talked to this morning about him getting a ride and possible staying with us in town. Uh-oh...that was before we found Kate and Max. We now have 7 people who would need to fit in the 4Runner and cabin. We will just assume all will work out and we continued hiking. 
Just before 6:30 PM we saw Tim headed up the trail towards us meaning that we were almost done for the day. We arrived at the 4Runner and jammed 5 of us in the backseat and then jammed all our bags on our laps. Not very comfy, but it worked. We arrived at the cabin to dump our bags and noticed that there will be no problem fitting all of us for the night. We then piled back in the car and went for dinner. We found an awesome local place, ate, and returned to the cabin for the night. 

What an awesome day. Tomorrow we get to sleep in and hike only 15 miles, but that gets followed up by two 25 mile days back-to-back.  I guess I better enjoy tonight and get ready for a few challenging days. Until tomorrow...

Our home for the night with Jazzman passed out on the floor