Day 144, September 8: Mile 2465 to 2475
Start: Leavenworth - Mile 2465.2
End: Lake Janus - Mile 2474.9
Miles: 9.7
Ascent: 1729 | Descent: 1601
The six of us (me, Frankie, Gus, Kevin, Squirrel Daddy, and Mim) woke up and got our Airbnb tidied up before checkout. We loosely floated the idea of staying one more day, making for a triple zero, and though it came somewhat close, we ultimately decided we should hike on. None of us were feeling particularly motivated to do so.
After bopping around town a bit more and getting lunch at McDonald’s, we walked out to the road to try to hitchhike back to trail. And luckily, we got one pretty immediately! A local guy and his girlfriend let us pile into his minivan, squished among our backpacks and his cute chocolate lab, and drove us the 40 minutes back to trail.
After getting dropped off and sitting around in the parking lot at Stevens Pass for a bit, we decided we finally needed to start hiking for the day. We were only planning to go 10 miles or so, and the hiking was pretty relaxed. We ended up camping near a nice lake and watched the sun’s light recede on the trees across the lake as we ate dinner before crawling into our warm sleeping quilts.