This morning was chill. We heard a rumor of two dudes doing trail magic at highway 4 and Ebbitts Pass. It was just 2 miles from where we camped last night. So this morning we booked it to the highway crossing. Boy was the rumor real! When I got to the highway, two older guys named Allen and Michael had an entire outdoor kitchen set up just to feed starving PCT hikers.
They immediately told us to chill and take a load off when we arrived. He made us burgers, handmade pizza (cooked fresh in a stone oven), balsamic vinegar with mozzarella and tomatoes, homemade kambucha, pastries, fruit, yogurt, egg quiche that his wife made, and oatmeal. It was an insane feast. It was the best trail magic I have ever seen. They were serious about their cooking. Even the pizza sausage was homemade. His kombucha is fermented for 12 days and he makes 100 bottle batches that he just gives away to his friends.
Allen: a trail angel's angel and megameal extraordinair
lazy fucks + free food = lazy fucks
I ate so much food and it was only 10am. We still had 17 miles to hike! Neither of them would accept donations. I snapped a portrait of Allen and the 3 of us jammed out.
The whole section of the trial was dirt and dry for the most part. The landscape has changed a lot too. We passed 3 dirt roads (that hasn’t happened for hundreds of miles now) and the peaks are much smaller and at lower elevation. I’ve mentioned this a few times in previous daily entries.
Dirt for a change
The hills are constructed of red lava sand and the hillsides are loaded with freshly bloomed sagebrush, mint, and a thousand different species of flowers. The smells are wonderful. Insects buzz and fly around us all day, everywhere on the trail, conducting their business.
We navigated a couple sketchy ice shelves and then dropped some more in elevation. After 19 miles, I stopped for the day and dealt with mosquito swarms most of the evening. All in all, a great day.