September 16

End: mirror lake
Daily: 25.9
Total: 2392.2

Oh, today was so much better than yesterday. We even saw the sun! 

Hannes decided he was done with rain and wanted to get to the Howard Johnson's hot tub. So he took off to try to do the 35 miles to Snoqualmie Pass. 

We leapfrogged with Zm and Goodness all day, eating huckleberries and making our way through clear cuts. I was almost sick of huckleberries by the end of the day. Almost.

We took an early lunch at the first big patch of sun and dried out our stuff, which was a huge moral booster, plus it took that water weight off our backs. 

After lunch we got to Stampede Pass, a dirt road pull out where there were three people doing trail magic. They gave us a huge deli sandwich and cookies and chips, which was awesome. The whole situation was so bizarre, though. They were really high and throwing stones at porcelain plates they apparently found in the woods, because "the woods are full of plates, man." One of them was really enthusiastic about telling the story of the drunk nutria hunt he went on in Eugene. Then they told us that they only did 55 miles in four days and they didn't know why it took them so long, "because we got up at you know, 9 or 10 and started hiking, and we were drunk, you know, but we didn't want to look at our maps because we wanted to just go, and we just couldn't figure out why we were going so slow..." I was cracking up so much because I felt like we had somehow gotten sucked into a circus.

Anyway we left and got to mirror lake just as it was getting too dark to see. Maybe a hotel and a nero tomorrow?