Day 47 - Monday October 12th

Twisp, WA to Newhaven, WA
84.96 miles
6:25.24 hrs
38.4 max
13.2 avg

With the amount of climbing ahead of me today and the bitterness of the morning cold, it seemed as if today was going to last forever. Unlike yesterday, I knew what terrain was ahead of me and this allowed me to mentally prepare myself for it.

In the end, the day was not so bad. The scenery was gorgeous and with the smart purchase of handwarmers/toewarmers at the beginning of the day I did not feel like I was going to lose my fingers or toes on the long descents off the two passes. It did get very cold at the top of the passes and I would have been in some major trouble if I did not decide to splurge on the heating pouches.

Throughout most of the day I had the thought of a nice shower and warm bed to sleep in concluding my days journey. I was unhappily informed, about 20 miles outside of my final destination, that the town I was going to stop in that evening was not home to such a motel. This upset me thoroughly because it is supposed to rain tomorrow and I do not want to start the day out wet!

The man who gave me this information, a motorcyclist who pulled up beside me and continued to have a 5 min conversation as we glided alongside devil's lake, did locate a place for me to camp that night and gave me a great connection in Bellingham if I need it.

I stayed in a national park tonight, under a pavilion that would keep me out of the rain when it came overnight. I knew that this was not allowed but considering that there was one person on all of the campgrounds besides myself, what were they going to do? Kick me out? (what a rebel!) The camping was free, because there was no water and this unfortunately was not optimal given my low H2O situation! I was not overly worried due to the fact that there was fast and free flowing river no more than 20 yards from my camp site. After setting up camp I went down to the waters edge to find dead fish lining the shores. Not wanting to catch some deadly disease that would hospitalize me (my COBRA insurance has been "terminated" by the way) I decided to use my last water bottle sparingly instead of risk using a water filter.

After eating a great meal of chili, hanging up my food from a rafter on the outside of the pavilion and finishing my nightly routine I fell asleep very early (9pm). This early bed time was partially due to the fact that my mind was playing tricks on me about different animals that might attack me during the night, it was easier just to close my eyes. If it was not for the banks lined with fish I probably would have been a little more worried and maybe hung my food a couple campsites away.