on our way to Snoqualime
The next stop was Snoqualime pass, which is the closest stop of the trail to Seattle, the city where Miles grew up and Miles' parents live in. We were very excited to get there because we hadn't slept in a bed since we started our journey on June 19th and hadn't taken a shower since Stehekin.
With new shoes and packs full of food, we set off on a 3.5 day journey where we covered 71 more miles on the trail. Here we tried to ramp up our mileage so we did a 20 mile day and a 21 mile day! We're getting in the grove of hiking all day and our bodies are getting used to it. We're finding different ways of entertainment during the trail, sometimes it's just the experience of being in nature, sometimes we sing or talk, sometimes we "podcast", which is when one of us will explain a long story to the other.
On this stretch we had two interesting wildlife sightings - we saw a bear and a deer (from very close). Will make a separate post about this!!
We were hiking this section during the 4th of July holiday so we had some chocolate cake to celebrate. We also found a lot of people on day hikes or 1 or 2 night backpaking trips. It's really interesting to stop and chat with different folks along the trail and hear their stories.
The last day before getting to Snoqualime might have been the best day ever yet on the trail. We were hiking on the ridge of this amazing mountain with views of Mt Rainier and we were able to find a beautiful campsite with this magnificient view. This is a section that I'd highly recommend people to go visit and will make sure to visit in the future again sometime 😄
