Day 116: Wednesday, August 28

Tenting a stone's throw from Timberline Lodge (PCT mi 2107.6), walked 3.9 miles today

Spit Walker yelled something about "It's Timberline breakfast time, get up!" as he walked by my tent at 6:30 to wake me up. I ended up packing up fast and beating him there anyway ... The morning was a four-mile climb that culminated with some spectacular views of Mt. Hood, seen below. By 8:30 I was at the Lodge and made a beeline for the breakfast buffet, and the hype was real. Everything at the buffet was very swanky and very delicious--my final total came to two Belgian waffles topped with cream and berries and chocolate, two cups of yogurt, three fills of coffee, four biscuits with gravy, a bit of potato scramble with salsa, one slice of ham frittata, and a sausage patty. Spit Walker joined me after my first plate and Stumblin' Beef and Sherpa C soon followed in.

After the repast I repaired to the sofas in the main area of the lodge to do a bunch of phone/internet errands, including a lot of work on my notes for Yogi's guide, then around 1pm the other three returned to the Lodge (from Beef's top secret campsite 100 yards uphill of it), decreeing it was time for lunch. So after a bit of rice pilaf, teriyaki-glazed salmon, tri-tip steak, pork roast, roasted veggies, basil-garnished mozzarella slices, tomato-basil soup, pint of Mt. Hood Amber Ale, peanut butter cookies and a chocolate cupcake, I was rather full. I was in a food coma for another few hours, during which I should've either left to keep hiking or fallen asleep, but instead I did neither and idled around the Lodge with any one of the dozen or so hikers who had floated in throughout the day. Tried to leave and go hike at least 6 miles or something around 4pm, but my body wasn't up to it; it was too sleepy. Stuck thus in limbo, I pitched my tent up by the others and lay down, but there was still too much to interest my brain and I called home and read a few hiker blogs on the phone and then went back into the lodge one last time for a nip at the bar. One overpriced and underwhelming dark & stormy later, I was done with the lodge and other people and ready to crash. I did have one last nice sitting session with the other three, plus two locals we met and eventually an older couple from Northern Virginia, on the back patio looking up at the mountain in all its sublimity. Then I got back to my tent, and I'm going to bed at 8:30 and getting up tomorrow and doing a bazillion miles, even and especially if it's raining on me, as the forecast predicts will happen.