Pct day 106

September 20

1693 – 1713

I can still see Mt. Shasta!

I was determined to have a bigger day. I forced myself to walk 5 miles at a go. At mile 1700, I sat down for lunch and that’s when the terrible thing happened. I mixed my tuna packet with some instant mash potatoes. After enjoying my delicious salty meal, I realized that the tuna packet wrapper had fallen on the ground. It was covered with wasps. Dozens of them. Maybe a million. I tried grabbing the wrapper with my hiking sticks. The wasps stayed on. I tried splashing water on them. I wasted a whole bottle of water on that. I was much too stinger-shy to pick up the wrapper with my hand. 

To the person who finds my trash, I’M SORRY ABOUT THE TRASH! I realize that I am a terrible litterer person. I will pick up one thousand pieces of trash to make up for that tuna wrapper, I promise.

I saw a pair of southbound hikers later. I did not tell them about the trash. I’m sure they saw it and cursed the trash person, just like I always do.

At the top of a hill, someone had left a cooler of trail magic. I was running low on food and so grateful for the cream soda. A day when I was endlessly hungry and food-obsessed was perhaps the wrong day to listen to my friend Zach’s podcast interview with a cook about his world food tour. Omg. I’m so hungry.