Day 123

(Originally written on Friday, September 4)

Today was my first full day back on the trail after my big resupply and brief time with the family. My goal for the next five days, including today, is about 125 miles--or 25 miles per day. I need to do this so that I can stay on track with my finish date of Oct 3. I'm also meeting a buddy at the end of the 125 miles and he's going to hike the last 15 or so into Cascade Locks. Anyway, the terrain today wasn't bad, but it was kind of steep by Oregon standards! (Oregon's easier terrain has been a welcome change from California.) Of course all terrain is about twice as hard when you are loaded down with food for six days, which I am.

The weather held up all day today, thankfully, but you can definitely feel a chill in the air. I'm glad I included my cold weather hat and gloves for this section! In fact, they'll likely be with me for the rest of the trip. The clouds didn't really dissipate until the afternoon and until then I wasn't sure if it was actually going to clear up or cloud up even more. The word we got from a trail maintenance crew earlier today is the bad weather is supposed to show up sometime tonight with winds of up to 20-25 mph. Another guy said that the rain isn't supposed to get here until tomorrow night. Fingers crossed!

PS - Thanks to Jessica, Alexis (again!), and Jocelyn for the contributions!