Day 48 – Stan By Me

My alarm goes off at 4:50. Within minutes a creature goes running by the foot of my bed. It is tall and wearing a headlamp. It is one of those crazy night hikers. It vanishes almost as soon as it appeared. Did that really happen or am I still dreaming? I get up to pee, and then quickly return to my bed to get dressed and eat. Yes, in my bed under my quilt.

At 5:00 I wake Stan as he asked me to so we can leave by 6:00. Stan gets up makes some coffee, but he is not quite ready at 6:00, so he tells me to go on ahead and he will catch up.

Up and at ‘em

The day starts with an 1800 ft climb. I am not disappointed at all. My legs that were so sluggish yesterday are ready to go today! Stan and I are going to breeze through the miles.

I reach the top of the climb at a point where several trails come together. There are signs explaining some of the detours required due to damage caused by the Labor Day 2020 storm that damaged the PCT. While the PCT has been somewhat restored, trails like the Timberline Trail will not be repaired until next year.

As I am reading the signs, Stan comes up the hill. He looks pretty wild. Where is his shirt? What kind of coffee has he been drinking?

Companions

We walk together for a while. There are some blowdowns on this part of the trail, but they are not impassable. Stan tells me about his band. I ask him about the music he likes to listen to. Pretty soon we are singing Steve Miller songs together. Stan is the singer for his band, so he knows about a million songs.

At Lolo Pass, we find a picnic table and Stan shares some delicious biscuits and gravy with me. It is amazing how good freeze-dried food can be! I give Stan a Teriyaki flavored meat stick. It doesn’t seem like a fair trade.

Stan humors me as I stop to take some flower photos.

As we cross some power lines, we look over our shoulder at what we thought we had left far behind – Mt. Hood. The mountain will be looking over our shoulder all day as we move from its western side to its northern side.

An auspicious appearance

We stop to fill our water bottles and you will never guess who walks up the trail behind us. It’s the Wander Women! I introduce them to Stan. It is so good to see them. They had thought that I was three days ahead of them. I learn that the are heading for the same camp as Stan and me tonight. Cool.

As we head up the trail, we meet a couple of older ladies on the trail. I mention in passing that they are in for a treat as the Wander Women will soon be passing by. They are intrigued. I tell them that the Wander Women are about their age. Uh oh. I have just made one of the worst possible conversation mistakes. I brought up the subject of a woman’s perceived age. One lady says, “Oh, and just how old do your think we are?” Honestly, I would have said she was about 68, so I safely lowball my response. “Fifty,” I say. Then Stan blurts out 40. As she turns her gaze toward Stan I dash off. She says they are 70 and 80. She wants a picture of Stan. He is still carrying the stick with no shirt on. He has put a feather in his man bun. He looks like a caveman. I tell Stan later that she thinks he was hot.

Complications

I walk ahead as Stan inexplicably falls behind. I wait several times but he does not appear. So I just go on ahead. I will stop for lunch soon. Perhaps he will catch me then. The trail crews have done a good job in this area. Many trees have been removed from the trail. But this soon comes to an end and the trail becomes very difficult as trees have been uprooted by the trail creating deep pits, or trees have fallen on the trail creating enormous obstacles. I take my lunch and wait for Stan to appear.

After 20 minutes, he appears, but he does not look good. He tells me he has blisters on both feet and his knee is really bothering him. This is bad. We still have more than 5 mikes to go before we reach camp. And we have at least 2 miles of severe blowdowns. Stan, even in his condition, is better at climbing over the trees. He soon outdistances me and I am left to get over them by myself. I am very unhappy with this and start to get frustrated. At last I call out to Stan. He I s not far away, so he comes back to me. I ask him if he would hang back with me in case I fall or twist my leg. We do the rest of fallen trees together.

However, now Stan is in a lot of pain. We talk about how far we should go today, and if maybe we should find a way to get him off the trail soon. Stan struggles on like a trooper, and we eventually get into camp. Stan just wants to put up his tent and lay down.

As we near camp, the trail smooths out again. We believe that the worst of the blowdowns are behind us.

Wander Magic

Within minutes, the Wanders arrive. I tell them that Stan has had a rough day, and Annette offers to treat Stan with the miracle cure – lueko-tape. She treats his feet as we all set up our tents and start our evening meals.

A man and his 13-year-old son camping next to us hear that the three ladies in camp are the Wander Woman. They are big fans of their Instagram account, and they would love to have dinner with them. So we all cram around the picnic table and share our lives. Pretty fun.

Tomorrow we will get to Cascade Locks. We will take the overgrown Indian Springs connector trail to the splendid Eagle Creek trail. We agree to head out together in the morning to increase our chances of not getting lost.

• July 19
• Starting mile: 2110
• Ending mile: 2128
• Daily PCT miles: 18
• Total PCT miles: 756
• Animals: