Mile 2542 – 2569.4

“There was a mouse in my TENT!” Bedazzled proclaimed as soon as I walked over in the morning. I started laughing. “Why are you laughing?” She asked nonplussed as she folded her arms over her chest. “It was just a matter of time,” I said. “What are you talking about?!” she countered. “Well isn’t your food bag ripped to shreds from keeping you titanium spork and stove in it?” I asked. “Yes,” she begrudgingly answswered. “And don’t you sleep with your food in your tent?” I asked again. “Yes,” she answered. “There, you see it was just a matter of time.” I smiled. “I hate you sometimes,” she pouted. “I told you not to sleep with your food in your tent and keep it in your backpack. I also said it wasn’t a good idea to keep your spork and stove in your food bag since it would poke holes in it.” I explained.

As we started walking, Bedazzled told me the whole story. She had heard the mouse at 2:00 in the morning chewing and eating. She lay there doing nothing for 2.5 hours because she thought it was just outside her tent. It turns out it was in her tent the whole time! By the time she decided to have a look at what the mouse was doing, it had chewed through her tent in two spots and gorged itself on the contents of her food bag. She tried to shew it out of her tent, but when she did, it ran back and forth all over her sleeping bag and around the four corners of her tent. She finally found the hole and lifted up the bottom of her tent to force it out from whence it came. The poor mouse must have been terrified! :-p.

I must admit I wasn’t very sympathetic since I had told her countless times to take more precautions with her food. She always told me it was “safest” to sleep with it. I also remembered when she used me as a human shield against the night time critters out of Cascade Locks.

We had a long descent in the morning and the trail broke free of the trees as we crossed long talus fields with seasonal streams still flowing. There were still snow patches hidden in the shady folds of the mountain slopes. We passed a man who looked like he was straight out of a 1960s mountaineering magazine. He looked to be in his 80s and he has carrying an ice axe! Not sure here he expected to use it, but it seemed like he had found a setup that worked for him a long time ago and stuck with it.

As we were crossing a stream over a set of narrow fallen trees, I heard a sack of cement fall behind me. I turned around and it wasn’t a sack of cement at all. It was Bedazzled fully laid out on a pile of rocks! “Are you alright!” I yelled. “Hehehe, yeah,” she laughed. “How are you OK after that?” and “what are these Germans made of?” I wondered as I waited for Bedazzled from the other side of the stream. I often joked with ViPR and FunDip that Bedazzled was falling her way to Canada. Her legs show the battle scars from all her falls. This time she added a cut knee, scraped hip, and bloody elbow. I asked if she wanted to stop so I could clean her wounds, but she said it was fine. Then she told me she had been brushing her teeth when she was crossing on the logs. I told her she was lucky she didn’t put her toothbrush through her cheek. She just laughed. Oh the invincibility of youth.

As we were closing in on Stehekin, I heard a loud roar and boom over head. I looked up just in time to see a military jet (some type of F-16 or similar) whiz by overhead. I turned to Bedazzled and said, “Why do they have to fly over and scare all the fucking animals and shit.” Apparently, I had been using the phrase “fucking (blank) and shit” a lot that day (real classy, I know) and Bedazzled proceeded to imitate me for the rest of the day. She kept asking if I wanted to “get some fucking water and shit” or “take a fucking break and shit.” Payback for this morning? Maybe.

We made it to High Bridge Ranger Station in time for the 6:15 bus to Stehekin. When we arrived after a 45 minute bus ride, we setup camp as a dramatic sunset played out over Lake Chelan, a 50+ mile long lake in Northern Washington.

I repaired Bedazzled’s tent as we talked about how crazy it is we only have 3.5 days left on trail.

On a side note, Today was my forth day in a row without listening to podcasts. I’m trying to soak up these final days on trail.