Misty Mountain Hop

Diablo to Winthrop. more than 9,000 miles.

Day 5 was hell. I spent the night before not sleeping in a freezing thunderstorm. I started sleeping as the sun came up, and woke up around 11 in a late morning mist. Immediately upon rising I realized that some sort of critter had made my breakfast into it's breakfast. Fresh picked mountain strawberries and white rice. I sure hope they enjoyed it.

Let's face it. I wouldn't remember that particular breakfast if they hadn't eaten it. I ended up eating some oatmeal with cinnamon.(blech).
Oddly enough, this campsite had no running water. I found this strange as it was less than a mile from the Seattle City Light town of Diablo.



So I got some water out of the river, and added one iodine tablet to it. This is about half of the recommended amount... however, it proved to be too much for me.

I started riding uphill, figuring there would be a roadside stop with water. After three turnouts, this proved not to be the case.

It started to rain once I got past the dams. My jacket was not really waterproof, and my pants definitely were not, nor my shoes. I considered going back to my last campsite to try again the next day, but decided to try to get over the mountains.



The road was this steep the entire way. Eventually my toes got so cold that I stopped at a trailhead, stole a trash bag liner and wrapped it around my freezing wet toes. It was disgusting.

I kept going up, eating my disgusting oatmeal and drinking my burning water. (Iodine sterilizes your tongue too.)

I eventually made it to rainy pass, and was so happy that I was over the hill.



Actually I had to go up a few thousand more feet, but they didn't seem long at all after knowing it was over, it had stopped raining by this point too, which was quite nice. Even though I was still wet with snow everywhere, I felt warm because I was going uphill in the sun.

Then I saw a Marmot! Made it all worth it.


I eventually made it down the mountain... by the bottom I was miserable again, I slept that night right on the river in downtown Winthrop. one of the best campsites all summer.