September 1st
The first day of September and our second day in Washington. It feels like we are in the home stretch now. Morning light came late to our camp nestled snuggly in the bottom of a narrow ravine surrounded by very large, tall and old trees. In general morning light is coming later and later, “pinching” us for time on this end as well.
The “peace” offering that the Carrot set out for the mice worked. All the peanuts and cracker crumbs we left out were gone and the food bags seemed to be untouched.
As we started out it was warmer than usual but the skies were cloudy and threatening. Perhaps the warmth was held in by them overnight. We stopped after an hour or so of hiking to have breakfast, as usual. While we were eating a front moved through, some light rain started to fall then stopped and the temps dropped about 10 degrees. Wind would blow clouds around all day and once or twice a few light rain drops would fall for a couple minutes and then it would stop. Nothing serious developed. But the clouds hung in all day
The route ecountered a lot of ups and downs. The days of walking on near level terrain in Oregon are gone. Unfortunately there were very few views despite all the climbing.
We remain in a void, another day without seeing any thru-hikers. In fact we only came across two women out for a stroll from a nearby campground. The highlight of the day was coming across 3 young elk in a wet brushy area. Late in the day we once again raced darkness into camp arriving just before it was too dark to see.
During dinner we looked overhead and a few stars seemed to come out with the promise of some clearing for tomorrow.
