Day 149: (20.39 miles)
2237.52 – 2257.91

After a restful night in the hostel we had coffee and a danish on the porch of the Grocery Store. Butterfingers had arranged a ride to the trailhead with trail angel, “Bob”. Bob, a retired firefighter, was right on time and took us up the hill (all thirteen miles) to the trailhead. On the way up the hill we had a view of Mt. Adams. She was covered in snow and towered high in the sky. Today we would be skirting her base as we climbed to higher ground. Stranger, leading the way took us deep into the forest and up a steep climb. You know by now this is the normal morning routine…our morning “vitamin”. An hour into the hike Paul asked me to check the Delorme to see if he had turned on the tracking. The Delorme is ” always” attached to his pack in the same location, except today it’s missing. Holy crap! Paul always puts it on the pack first thing, so this is highly unusual and has us instantly worried. He searches his pack with everything out on the trail like a yard sale. We start going through our options, call the Grocery Store (if we have signal), or hike back down to the road and hitch into Trout Lake. None of these sound good. One last search in the already frisked backpack and eureka! Paul can’t figure how it got in the bottom of the side pocket, but we are relieved. When you do a hike like this you learn to do everything the same way every time so these thing don’t happen. The one time you don’t, always costs you time and grief. We tend to learn these thing more than once, reminding us we are only human or descended from apes.

We ascended through a burnt forest and exited into volcanic rock and a spectacular view of Mt. Adams, which up to now was blurred by the burnt forest.

We hiked most of the day with an ever changing view that made us stop, gawk and and point.

We stood right below and the mountain, which seemed to be straight up. We saw Chop Chop and her husband, Prospector, and traded stories about the days’ hike. We were all headed to Lava Springs for water and a campsite.

The trail alternated between lava rocks and green forest until we reached the spring late in the day. The spring was flowing out of the lava rocks into a pool surrounded by rocks. It was crystal clear, ice cream headache cold, water that was very refreshing after the long day. Many hikers had gathered in a “group” camp, while we found a campsite above the spring. Tomorrow we head toward Goat Rock.