Day 5. Enchantments 9.0 miles

Wasaaaaaaaap?!?! 

Today we left our beautiful mountain home and headed back to society. Everyone woke up with a bunch of dirt on them and all their gear! Luckily, the winds had died down and the morning was beautiful, although a little cold. And somehow, even with no wind, there were no mosquitos! 

Vicky’s back still hurt really bad so we all divided up her stuff, leaving her with an empty pack except for some clothes and snacks. We took a group selfie with some impressive phone balancing and timer work on my end I must say. :) Claire and I took off ahead since we had some organizing to do back at the trailhead with our food for the next leg of our trip.

Goodbye clear and pristine lake!

Goodbyyyyyeeeee!!!

With beers and hot food and showers on the mind, we were BOOKING it down the 9 miles back to the trailhead. Steep at times, but nothing compared to the scramble sections of the trail two days ago when we hiked up to Aasgard Pass.

Loving Claire’s new Deuter Vario Pro

My baby bookin’

And posin’

And log crossin’

We left camp at around 8:30am and with two small breaks arrived at the cars before noon! We were cruising almost 3mph that whole way including breaks! When we got to Daveys truck where we had left our food we discovered that a mouse had gotten into our food bag that we left in the canopy of his truck, (A dumb decision on my part, haha). The casualties included one ramen, a fruit snack, a white chocolate Clif Bar, and unfortunately, the peanut butter pretzels, AND Claire’s Ritz!! (Nooooooooooooooo!!!) Could’ve been worse, so we counted our blessings and we’re happy with the 10+ lbs of food that remains! Speaking of food, it was time to get back to Leavenworth and get some grub! 

Pimento stuffed pretzel knots and a ton of brussel  sprouts! Yum yum yum!! 

While we were in town, we visited Der Sportsmann (the outdoor store), and we got Claire some blue Superfeet insoles for more ankle support in her shoes (the insoles she wore on PCT 2016 and that I did in 2018). We also got her a better mid-layer for warmth and I decided to downsize one of our stainless steel cooking pots to an aluminum mug. It’s small changes like this that are continually dialing in our gear and making big changes in the long run of our hike! 

Leavenworth is a crazy parking nightmare on the weekend as we’ve come to find out. We thought we parked in a free zone, but luckily, Claire and I went back to Nicks car JUST in time to save it from a ticket! We moved the car and rendezvoused with Nick and Megan who drove us to our AirBnb for the night. The others are going up to Twisp, WA to visit family while Claire and I stay a night in Leavenworth and then hitch out to Stevens Pass tomorrow! 

Nobody got time for a ticket

AirBnb

Neighbors

After checking in, I walked back into town to do some laundry. It’s always funny to be wearing your rain jacket since you need to wash everything else. I always get a lot of funny looks. Rain jacket and shorts and flip flops on an 80° day in town, hahaha. After I got back we lazed around and ended up ordering pizza! Our AirBnb has a hot tub but after putting away the whole pizza, we can’t even bring ourselves to get changed and go outside, haha.

Laundry wear

All of the clothes between Claire and I (minus rain jacket and my shorts and our puffy jackets)

Only in Leavenworth

Yup, we ate that whole thing.. has hiker hunger even started yet?!

Well, it’s 10:30pm, waaaaaaaaay past our bedtime! Tomorrow we finalize our resupply for our next leg and then head out towards Stevens Pass! The next section is 65 miles so don’t expect to see a blog update for a little while (probably 5 days). 

Thanks for reading!