PCT Day 139 – Huckle Pluckin’

Trout Lake (mile 2229) to campsite at mile 2214

I am the statue of liberty. Though instead of holding a torch aloft to welcome the huddled masses yearning to breathe free unto my shoes, I am begging my phone to grasp fleeting data from the sky. Standing in a bramble patch awaiting Google photos to load and confirm that the plants I believe to be huckleberries aren’t in fact going to kill me. Starman is below me on the trail, absently squishing a berry between his fingers. Finally the internet confirms that these are indeed huckleberries and not some previously unknown North American murder berries. I return to the trail to give Starman the good news, to which he replies “I already ate one.” Super.

We spend the next 40 minutes in berry picking bliss. Filling my 11oz coffee bottle to the brim with the sweet dark berries, and eating at least half as many in the process. How calming to be in a place where food grows on bushes right along the trail. And the next morning we’ll even have enough berries left to have some with breakfast.