Mile 2,476.3 - 2,495.7

Our hiking friend Buttercup said yesterday, "See you at 6:30am" for a ride back to the trailhead. Sure enough, the retired Marine was waiting in the motel lobby at promptly 6:30am, even though he was taking a few rest days to be with his wife. Thank you Buttercup. The world could use more people like you. Buttercup is doing this hike as part of the Warrior Walk program. 6 warriors started in Mexico and just 3 are left, including Buttercup. What an interesting guy.

After Buttercup dropped us off at the trailhead, we had several miles of flat easy hiking to warm up. That was just a tease. Today was one of the harder hiking days of the trip. Huge and painful ups and downs all day long. The reward was clear views of Glacier Peak. The last volcano we will hike near -it's incredible. 

About midday we came across two trail volunteers doing maintenance. I noticed right away that it was Bigfoot Jim, who we hiked with back in Northern California. He and his friend "Structure", who is 77 years old, hiked a huge section in California. He recognized us right away too. What a small world it is. We talked for some time before moving on and letting him and his partner get back to trail work. As always, we thank every trail volunteer we see out on the trail. They are the reason we can hike this amazing trail, and it's a lot of work. Great seeing you again, Bigfoot Jim.

We couldn't help ourselves. We are camped again in a beautiful meadow with the setting sun putting an alpine glow on our tent. Hope we don't have regrets tomorrow morning with a dew-soaked tent.

Thank you Buttercup for helping us out with rides both to and from Skykomish. We got to avoid making the last hitch of our hike. Even more so, thank you for your service with the Marines. 

Our hiking friend "Bigfoot Jim",  on the right. He and his partner were doing trail work as we came hiking by. Great talking to you and thank you for your work.

Glacier Peak. We have been hearing about how beautiful it is for many miles now. Glad we had a nice day to see it.

Balance hiking in the noon day sun.

Our meadow campsite. Hope we don't regret it with lots of condensation in the morning.