Cloud 9

I’m still in shock over yesterday’s picture perfect series of events. I think I shared the news with every day hiker I passed. I was walking on cloud 9 all day.

There was quite a bit of elevation to gain on today’s hike into Snoqualmie. It was steeper and tougher than I expected, but not anything we couldn’t handle.

Once I reached Snoqualmie, I was so glad it wasn’t the end of our hike. It felt a little anticlimactic walking into a resort with so many tourists. I met Drom at the coffee shop for a toasted turkey sandwich and a salted pistachio latte.

The rest of the crew was at Dru Bru brewery. After I finished my latte, we made our way over to meet everyone for a celebratory drink. Radio was saying how she feels like she completed the PCT and was going home before leaving for a separate 3 day backpacking trip. It makes sense because we’ll be breaking our continuous footpath due to the remaining fire closures. But to me, it feels more like we are about to go into Seattle for a double zero.

Drom’s friend so kindly offered to pick us up all the way in Snoqualmie and drive us back to Seattle. He brought his dog, so I was happily hanging out in the back seat petting her the whole way.

After getting back to Seattle and unloading our packs, Drom bravely faced the next big hurdle of driving a car after 5 months, and took us to Trader Joe’s to get some snacks and dinner. We fully leaned into the fall theme foods they have going on by buying maple kettle corn, a thanksgiving turkey wrap, pumpkin bisque, and maple cookies. Even though being in a big city is a little overwhelming, I’m glad to be able to shop at TJs easily again. The real world has some perks.