I was feeling pretty good at the end of yesterday so I wanted to push myself and see if I could make it into town. I had to hike 25 miles on trail, then 2 more down to a road, then get lucky hitchhiking or walk 11 miles into town.
The day started off great. I woke up before everyone and hit the trail. As I passed a feature of the mountains called “The Window” I saw someone doing a weekend trip.
Not long after that I reached into my pocket and my phone wasn’t there. In everyday life this is a problem, but out here it’s a really big deal since that tells me where to turn, where there’s water, etc.
I immediately turned around and started hiking back to find it, but after about 30 seconds another hiker turns the corner and holds up my phone. The wrist strap on my case had gotten caught in a branch and pulled it right out of my pocket.
This hiker was really really fast. He had passed all my friends and I tried to keep up with him. I was able to keep up for a little over an hour but when my shoe came untied he was long gone. Really nice guy though, and I think I may have convinced him to change careers to computer programming.
The next part of the day was mostly filled with me hiking. The views today were spectacular so it was east to stay motivated as I went up over passes and down into valleys.
We had all planned on camping about 20 miles after our last campsite. I got there at 4:30 and decided to keep going to make it to town. I still had 5 miles and a lot of climbing to go.
Eventually I made it to the side trail that I could take into Silverton. It was extremely steep, but only about 2 miles long. Soon I was at the trailhead but the only car there was empty.
I walked down the road a little further and found sort of a campground with about 5 cars. I went to all of them and asked if any were going into town, but had no luck.
I was just a little too late to catch any of the crowd that would be heading into town. Luckily, one of the campers gave me a beer, so my heroic nearly 30 mile day wasn’t for nothing.
I camped off the side of the road and tomorrow I’ll walk into town. (Or hopefully get a ride)