Date: August 7, 2017
Miles: 2134.1 – 2144.2
I woke up every couple hours last night to the sound of strange noises echoing in the trees around my tent. I had never heard such barking, yelping, moaning noises in the forest before and it kinda freaked me out, to be honest. I was tired and ready to get the heck out of there when I finally got up this morning.
I only had 10 miles to go in order to reach town, and all of those miles were downhill to the lowest point on the PCT – the town called Cascade Locks and the infamous Bridge of the Gods.
I raced down the endless switchbacks and met Tim and the kids at Bridgeside restaurant for breakfast, then we headed to Shrek’s Swamp, a local trail angel’s place where we could shower, do laundry and camp overnight.
After we cleaned ourselves up a bit, we went to Cascade Locks ale house – a hiker friendly pub in town that serves a hamburger between two slices of pepperoni pizza. Of course I ordered it.
Tim and the kids headed home after dinner and the rest of us went back to Shrek’s to relax. A few of us were interviewed by our friend Josh Ellerbrock, aka Byline, for a podcast episode on animals. Josh has a great podcast, which you can find here, and on Apple podcasts (and probably other places that I don’t know about). You should listen to it.
Between the noises rising up from the nearby highway, train tracks and other city spots, Shrek’s was one of the loudest places that we have camped so far, but we had a great time anyway.
On to Washington!
