Wednesday August 7, 18.5mi/29.8km

Sherman Pass (460.0/5436ft) to Thirteenmile Ridge campsite (478.5/4518ft) (WA)

I met up with Karrie at the coffee shop at 7am, as we had planned. She is a local trail angel who helps out hikers with rides, and sometimes showers and food too. While we were waiting for her coffee, I briefly met two other PNT thru-hikers! Sweets and Lorax, both from the east coast. There are other hikers out here!

Karrie dropped me off at Sherman Pass, and I was in my way. I even spotted the elusive PNT marker!

The PNT continued along the Kettle Crest for a few hours, and it’s a nice trail among beautiful granite mountains.

I could see into the valleys down below. It looks like the smoke from the nearby wildfire has accumulated down there.

Just before leaving the Kettle Crest, I found a cabin! It can be reserved thru the USFS, complete with cots, woodstove, and longdrop toilet.

And then, I left the nice trail and did a short bushwhack. It was only 2.5 miles, but took as many hours. Lots of rock scrambling, log hopping, and weaving around small cliffs. It was hot, and slow. I finally came to the end of it, and found some water.

And someone had decorated this boulder, and now it looked like a face with teeth. Haha, snaggletooth rock!

The rest of the day was uneventful, but went slower than expected. The map for this part is very inaccurate, and omits all the switchbacks that exist, thereby underreporting the mileage by at least a mile.

I arrived to a campsite at 6pm, and stopped for the day a few miles short of my goal. The slow bushwhack, combined with the underreported mileage, made for a very long day.