Jammin' with Jameson

22 miles. Truly one of the most magical days on trail so far. We all woke up pretty late and left one at a time as we got ready. The way down to the Baden-Powell trailhead had lots of tree tunnels that I enjoyed and helped make the morning a better start. Once I got to Vincent Gap(the parking lot), there was a fresh batch of 3 coolers of trail magic that contained sodas, chips and cookies, and fruit. I was so proud of myself when I only ate the fruit and forwent the famous Amos I was craving. The orange and mango were worth it. The climb to the top of the mountain was around 4 miles and ~2500 vertical feet with 38 switchbacks. It was incredibly crowded with day hikers and trail runners for the start of memorial day. It was slow going. I got to see Birch once I caught up with the rest of the group because Pitch was joining us for the weekend. We pushed to the summit and were rewarded with Girl Scout Cookies that swell brought up. We took a group photo and quickly descended from the wind. I hiked with Swell, Pitch, and AJ (newly dubbed Sol) for a while and then hiked ahead. After getting into a groove of lots of miles and started to get tired, we heard from day hikers that there was trail magic waiting for us at Islip Saddle 4 miles ahead. I only had a small snack and skipped out on first lunch with high anticipation for goodies. Flo tried to fear monger Josh and I into thinking that the trail magic would end at 2 which we would miss but we didn’t believe it. As we were approaching, we did our best to manifest beer, chanting “Always beer, always beer, always beer”. When we arrived, everyone had a drink in tow but Swell told us that they took the last ones. I was so pissed only to quickly find out that I had been duped. It was the sickest trail magic setup I had seen so far. Mako and her friend had a sprinter van, two canopies, 10 camping chairs, and two tables full of food from Costco. I absolutely pigged out with a sandwich, incredible spinach pastries, chocolate muffin, veggies plus dip, Oreos, and fruit. I played frisbee with Sol and Josh and drank some brews. I was pretty tired so I wish that I could have been even more energetic but it was an incredible vibe. We told Mako to drink with us and she pulled out a massive 32 oz can none of us had seen to lots of applause. She proceeded to drink it faster than any of us had our first beers. Swell, Pitch, and Josh all had 3 beers and Swell wouldn’t admit that she was the most tipsy of us all. We came to a compromise with Josh’s trail name to be Super Mooch so that he could have a catchy nickname of Smooch. As we continued to hang out, Mako became even happier to have us and she became a fan favorite. A guy, Dan, came by who told us that he was staying at Ski Member Lodge down the road and was happy to host us for the night as well. We couldn’t believe our luck. We decided to start walking and make it to the legendary Buckhorn Ski Lodge for the night. We started the uphill instead of starting the road walk early and quickly decided to take some edibles. After lots of conversation, but no weirdness, we decided to take more for a full dose instead of a half. Eventually, we got to the portion of the trail that was closed and we had to do a 3.3 mile road walk. I quickly fell behind (probably peeing) and started listening to music on my own. I got really sentimental about the White Rim trip and then about how crazy and amazing it was that we all got to walk the PCT together for so many months. After having feelings of euphoric thoughts, I realized the edibles had definitely kicked in. I caught up to the rest of the group to dance and giggle together on the road. Swell was struggling with her pushups by now so she decided to split them into sets every turnout. Unfortunately for her the turnouts seemed to come every minute. The walk quickly became boring, monotonous, and painful for our heels. The weed likely helped make it feel like it took forever. We finally got to the lodge and couldn’t believe how cool the property looked. I later learned it had 45 acres of terrain, two rope tows, a disc golf course, cost $125 a year to join, and had around 400 members. We walked in right as Glowstick finished cooking pasta for everyone. We ate happily and had more beer. We were all very tired so I had to lead the yoga class to get everybody to get up and join in. After lounging for a bit, I realized i should just go to bed so we headed upstairs to the second floor decked out with lots of mats and passed out.