The day started unexpectedly. We had just woken up when somebody carefully asked: “Flo? Flo?”
I ran out of the tent and gave Drew a big hug! And seconds later also Kayla and Yoni showed up getting the same greeting. Only the Little One was hiding somewhere in the woods doing her morning business and missed the surprise. But also she came and we all fell into each other’s arms… The family reunited! What a start into the day 😍
What I did not tell you is that I knew that they were out here. And they also knew that I was trying to catch up with them. I received a message from Little One that they had also bailed out of the the Sierras a bit earlier than us and were also heading up north. That made the decision to go north for now and especially where to go a lot easier 😉. So yesterday we had tried to catch them the entire day but gave up shortly before sunset. But apparently we must have overtaken them somehow while they were camping. So we were about to start another long and fast day to catch up. But they saw my footprints on the trail and knew what had happened. So Drew started running to make sure we didn’t get away to far. Reunited!!! 🤘🏼
Thank you Rae – your present finally arrived. Even though these two hungry hikers had killed my Toblerone and “only” left the Ritter Sport… 😂 And you are more than welcome & THANK YOU!
We said down while we were getting ready and exchanged the news and stories from the last weeks we had been separated. It feels so good to be back with these amazing guys… 😍
The rest of the day was mainly dominated by navigating through the snow again. Slush, slush and more slush and no visible trail. This takes forever. But since we all moved around the entire day telling stories it pretty much went into the background. Two more or less interesting things happened on top – we had more beautiful trees covered in the neon moss…
And we reached the official halftime marker – 1325 miles to Mexico and Canada. Unfortunately not for us yet since we are not really here yet – at least mile-wise. So we all took more or less unhappy pictures. We’ll have to celebrate our own halftime point…
The decision at night was to either go another 4 miles or to quickly get a hitch into Chester for some beers and pizza (incl. a few more snacks for the next days). The decision was made quickly. This evening was definitely worth a beer! Or two…
The church in town offered PCT hikers to just pitch their tents in the backyard. They also had a porta potty set up, running water and a few plugs to charge our phones. All you need. All based on trust and to support us hikers! Thank you! We just cowboy-camped on the deck because we were to lazy to pitch the tents…
