Freakin' Canada!

9/30: (ZERO) Again, I shouldn't have written about this zero before it happened. My intention was to take the Chelan ferry down to Chelan and get a ride that same day up to Winthrop. I was hoping to find someone heading to Winthrop on the ferry and I did....but they were going a couple days later. Instead, someone else offered to let me stay in the extra room of the cabin at the resort they were staying at! So I stayed with them in Chelan and it was awesome! Shower, salmon for dinner, watching the sunrise from the dock, etc!

10/1: (15.5 miles) The nice trail angels that let me stay with them last night were also kind enough to drive me to Pateros, WA. Then it was hitching from there. It took me about an hour and someone finally picked me up on their way home. Fortunately he was able to take me about 28 miles towards Winthrop. Unfortunately, it was still 6 miles to the nearest town. After another half hour, someone picked me up and drove me those 6 miles into Twisp. ~20 minutes of hitching later someone drove me into Winthrop where I was able to pick up my box of food and get lunch from the grocery store. Then I hitched for another half hour just to get driven to the other end of town, but someone picked me up immediately after that, taking me to Mazama, WA (the closest town to the trail). I was trying to hitch into Hart's Pass (the nearest road access to the US/Canada border) so that I could be done with the PCT soon. After about an hour and a half of hitching (everyone was friendly and waving, but no one was offering to drive me any distance whatsoever) I finally got a ride up to the pass. Starting at around 4:30pm, I hiked just over 15 miles today of classic Washington before camping late (just about 10pm). Fortunately, this would be my last night sleeping on the PCT!

10/2: (25.5 miles) Got going as early as I could stand with the cold (8am) and pushed hard today! I hiked quickly and it was difficult because of the long hill immediately out of camp. But after that the hills were either gradual or flat and I was able to get going pretty quickly. So quickly, in fact, that by the time I stopped for lunch at 1pm, I was only 2.8 miles from the border! I had gone 14 miles! I had "freeze-dried" (or "powdered") cheesecake for lunch that another hiker had given me and it was ehh...pretty good. Then I hiked quickly to the border. I got there and I was the only one around (I had seen other hikers coming back from the border, through) so I did some selfies with the monuments and hiked on into CANADA! A couple hundred feet into Canada I realized that I never signed a trail register at the border, so I went back to look for it. I searched all around and couldn't find it. The perfectionist in me decided to try to fix the off-kilter top half of the metal monument (check out my pictures) and it fell off! Apparently the top comes off and the trail register was inside! Sneaky, sneaky. I signed it, replaced it, and heaved the very heavy top half of the monument back into place (leaving it slightly off-kilter on purpose so that the next person would find it). Then I hiked on into Canada (it was about 2:45pm). I passed a couple hikers that were camping just past the border, but I pressed on and over the last long, slippery, and annoying hill (and down the other side) before I finally got to the road (and then to Manning Park Lodge). Unfortunately, they were fully booked but they had hostel rooms available. All along, "hostel" has meant "bunkhouse" but this actually meant "your own room with your own bed, it's just super tiny and not decorated or anything" which was fine by me! All night long as I was drifting in and out of sleep I had these dreams that I was still hiking. Oh boy, this might take a while to "decompress".

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Ladies and Gentlemen- the homestretch

[This last section was probably the most annoying section. It is the longest section on the PCT (5 full days between towns), full of steep up and downs, bushes encroaching on the trail that you have to constantly force your way through, and plenty of logs across the trail to climb over or even crawl under. Wasn't exactly my idea of "fun"]

9/25: (16.9 miles) I packed up my stuff at the Dinsmore's this morning and Mr. Dinsmore took us to Skykomish to get breakfast. After fully stuffing our faces, I went over to use the library's WiFi because the restaurant's and the Dinsmore's WiFis were atrociously slow (rule of thumb- the library always has good WiFi). I hung around with the other couple hikers at the restaurant until about noon when I decided to finally pull myself out of the vortex. The Skykomish deli has a sign for hitching that reads "PCT HIKER NEEDS RIDE TO STEVEN'S PASS" in nice, big, readable letters. They call it a magical sign and boy, were they right! I hauled out the sign and my pack near the highway and by the time I had set down my pack to get ready to hold up the sign, a car pulled up offering a ride. Easiest hitch ever! I quickly ran back in to return the sign, then hopped in the car. Up at the pass, the fog was as dense as could be (we could hardly see where to turn left for the trailhead). Fortunately it was easy-going for the first bit of hiking. Then Washington's familiar ups and downs. When I was about 12 miles in, I was walking up a switchback when a black bear ran across the trail about 50 feet in front of me! 1st bear in about 1800 miles! By the time I was within 2 miles of my planned camp spot, it had been dark for a while and I had been walking by headlamp. But the headlamp wasn't doing me much good with the dense fog, so I stopped early. Got my cooking water from a rain puddle (desperate times) and set up camp in the drizzling rain.

9/26: (23.7 miles) Today I had to make up that extra 1.3 miles that I missed yesterday. Uphills and downhills were abundant! Today was mostly overcast but at one point the sun came out. It was around 1pm and I started to stop for lunch. About 25min into my lunch, some rain picked up (with a bit of snow mixed in) and I had to quickly pack up everything I had set out to dry and dash out of there. So today wasn't the best. I did make up the extra 1.3 miles but I was still camping at a high elevation and it was quite cold.

9/27: (22 miles) Today I will dub the "Day of Slipping and Falling". As I mentioned above, I was at high elevation and it was very cold. In fact, so cold that even after the sun had been out for at least half an hour, my tent was still covered in stiff sheets of ice. I tried to wait for it to thaw out but eventually I had to get going so I just did my best to roll it up (inevitably rolling some ice up in it). This of course made my hands freezing and every minute or so I had to stop to warm up my hands. At around 9:50am I was finally packed up and ready to hike. So far there has been plenty of mud on the trails due to the rain on the first day and this makes for some creative hiking where I have to walk on the side of the trail, hop across rocks, etc. Today was further complicated with the trail being literally frozen (in places the whole trail was just a big sheet of ice). So I inevitably slipped and fell on that a couple times. Also, a couple times I had to cross logs over creeks or climb over logs that had fallen across the trail. Turns out that wet logs are very slimy and slippery as well (so that accounts for a couple more falls right there). And, at one other point, I was walking along a ridge line and the ground under my left foot gave way and I nearly fell off the trail (but caught myself and instead fell on the trail). Finally, I took a shortcut (0.5 miles cutting off 1.5 miles) on the old PCT where a bridge used to be but got washed out. Crossing the river there was fine but the trail to the old bridge was washed out too and I did somewhat of a "controlled fall" and slid down the dirt embankment. Needless to say, I was not happy that I was hiking the PCT at this point.

9/28: (20.9 miles) So that number reads "20.9" but if you mark my start and end points today, you'd see that I hiked about 27 miles today. Shortcuts are awesome. Today got going slow and within the first half hour of my hiking I wanted to be done. I was able to convince myself to push on and finally got to the downhill section. Today's big mission is basically a TON of downhill and a TON of uphill, then camp on the other side of that hill. But I noticed there was a junction where the old PCT used to go again (and again it was because a bridge got washed out and they built a newer one downstream). But this time, if I took the shortcut, I would spend 1 mile cutting off about 6 miles! Definitely taking it. So I forded a creek (took off my socks and shoes and all that) and had lunch on the other side. Fortunately the old PCT was easy to follow because it was still very worn (and I think some other people have had the same idea as me because some parts looked well-worn recently). I got through to the other side and the river where the bridge used to be actually seemed like a pretty dangerous ford (there weren't any obvious spots to cross and there was lots of water moving fast). But after about 20 minutes of hunting, I finally found a log to walk across (didn't slip and fall this time) and made it across to the PCT! Then from there on out I was able to put in ~3 mph up the hill and down the other side. Camping tonight was freaky. I was with two other tents in this wooded area and at around 9:30pm we heard big sounds right outside. There were at least 3 creatures and they sounded big. They were tromping all around our tents, breaking twigs underfoot, etc. One sounded like a bear trying to get someone's food in a bear canister. My food was in my tent with me and I was entirely freaked out. But in the morning one of the other hikers informed me that they were a group of stupid deer that where just walking around our campsite. < 100 miles to Canada!

9/29: (14.5 miles) I BOOKED IT today. I heard that the shuttle into Stehekin has changed to the Fall schedule so that the last bus runs at 3pm (turns out this was wrong), so I wanted to make it there by then. I hiked about 3.5 mph the whole morning, leaving at 8am and arriving just before 1pm. It averaged out to ~3.1 mph because I had to stop to eat or filter water a couple times. When I got to the ranger station I found out I had just missed the latest bus (the 12:45pm) by minutes. I was frustrated, but not too bad because I had planned on the 3pm anyway. But the nearby Stehekin Ranch picked me up in a shuttle and dropped me off at their place (only 2 miles away) where I could wait for the bus and use their molasses-ly slow WiFi. The bus came a couple hours later and I took it all the way down to Stehekin (it's about a 15min ride, but the bus stops at the famous bakery so that we can get some goodies). I hung around Stehekin for a while (hotel room was $135! so I camped for free), ate at the restaurant (very overpriced: $18 for an "ok" burger), and then set up camp.

9/30: (ZERO) Today the plan is to take the ferry from Stehekin down to Chelan (down the 54 mile-long Chelan lake), enjoy the ferry ride, then get a ride up to Winthrop from Chelan (Winthrop is the last town stop in Washington). I'll stay at the hostel in Winthrop and then get a ride to Hart's Pass (the last road access to the PCT before Canada) tomorrow (which will leave about 2 days of hiking to Manning Park, Canada). I'm skipping ~2 days of hiking between Stehekin and Hart's Pass because at this point I pretty much just want to be done with the PCT. If I was in California right now (and maybe Oregon), I'd probably just quit. But this closer to the border, I gotta finish it off. Here we go!

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"Cause I struggle with forward motion..."

9/21: (11.7 miles) Today I hiked out of Snoqualmie Pass. It was hard to get going and I was really getting vortexed! I finally got out of there around 2:30pm and started hiking around 3pm. Lots and lots of uphill ahead of me. I got going way too late and had to stop early. I was intending to do about 15 miles today but it was already dark and around 8pm before I found a good spot to camp. Because I was on top of a mountain, it was pretty chilly. Was really, really tired and didn't even want to cook dinner, so I just ate a spoonful of Nutella and went to sleep.

9/22: (24.6 miles) When I woke up today, it was so cold that the light mist had frozen my tent into stiff sheets of ice. But fortunately it warmed up soon. Today I had to make up for yesterday's "missed" miles. I hiked up lots of loose rock, then down the other side. Plenty of beautiful views today! Lunch was down in the valley before the next big uphill. The uphill was large and intimidating but I had podcasts on my side! Unfortunately, I only had two podcasts left (16 GB phone) and ran out before I reached the top of the hill. And I still had the next downhill ahead of me. So I hiked down the next big downhill as quickly as I could until I couldn't see where I was stepping. Then I put on my jacket and headlamp and kept hiking. Lots of nostalgic Relient K accompanied me down that hill (see this post's title). Camped near the Waptus River today.

9/23: (19.8 miles) Ah, an easy day. But, unfortunately, I didn't feel like hiking at all. My first break happened within the first 45 min of hiking and my second break was hardly an hour after that. I was eventually able to push myself to hike the rest of the way today. Slow going the whole day and I kept wanting to take a break (but there was no reason, nor time to do so). I made it to camp after dark at a wonderful campsite next to Deception Lake. Nice, soft grass everywhere. So appealing that I actually sat there for a moment, then went barefoot in order to set up my tent. Unfortunately, a nice water source and nice, soft grass comes with a price: mice. Lots of mice all around my tent and some crawled into my tent only to scurry around panicked for a few minutes because they didn't know their way out. Freaking annoying.

9/24: (7.1 miles) Ah, the day of shortcuts. Immediately from my campsite I took a shortcut that was a little steeper than the PCT (and definitely more rocky and treacherous on the downhill), but it cut off about 2 miles. Then, about a mile later, I took the wonderful shortcut to the highway. It was 5 miles of steep downhill (cutting off 9 miles of PCT-ness), but I hiked it with a couple of other hikers and we talked the whole way. We got a ride from a nice couple we met on the way down and they drove us into Skykomish. Here in Skykomish we got burgers and milkshakes at the Cascadia Inn & Cafe where the famous trail angel Mr. Dinsmore (of the Dinsmore's Hiker Haven) happened to be eating at the time. The waitress tipped us off and he's giving us a ride back to his place momentarily. Bed, shower, and laundry tonight!

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Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...

9/17: (25.8 miles) Today I got picked up from the Packwood Inn quite early (7am) by a friend of the guy who picked me up from the trail and dropped me off here the day before. I had originally planned ~20 miles for this day, but it started raining/drizzling/snowing all day and (as I always do when hiking in weather like this)- I didn't want to take breaks. So I ended up hiking without stopping at ~3.2mph. About 12pm I was looking for a place for lunch (I usually have lunch around 1:30pm) and I found a nice big dry spot (it had been raining, but not too bad). I sat down and realized I had gone nearly 14 miles already! Way ahead of schedule! And the sun was peaking through a couple clouds at that point. So with the added Vitamin D (what I'd like to just dub "visible motivation"), I decided to add ~6 miles to today's total so that I can stay at the Mike Urich cabin tomorrow night (this is the only backcountry shelter on the PCT in Washington). I grabbed an extra Snickers bar from my food for lunch and kept hiking- basically only stopping once until Dewey Lake. I had to set up my tent in some light rain, but I made it!

9/18: (26.7 miles) It was a lot nicer today! When I got out of my tent around 8am, the sun was already dissipating some of the clouds. I left just before 9 and hiked up the next hill and 3.2 miles from my camping spot to Chinook Pass and highway 410. This is the entrance to Mt. Rainier park (which we've been skirting in and out of the border of for the last 10 miles or so). Just after the highway there were some pit toilets at a parking lot (which I took full advantage of). Then it was another long hiking of ups and downs (welcome to WA)- this time on lots of loose rock. The key to hiking for a long time while shrugging it off like it was nothing (what some might call "getting in the zone") is podcasts: lots of podcasts. The day was pretty nice and sunny till around 5 or 6pm when it started sprinkling. But by 7pm I had made a new distance record and was indoors! Mice inside the cabin too (that's pretty much a guarantee in a backcountry shelter) but I still slept reasonably well.

9/19: (19.1 miles) You know, I thought it'd be easier to get up earlier this morning because I wouldn't be freezing cold (causing me to spend an extra hour or two just laying in my sleeping bag). But it was still hard. This was definitely a vortex. But I started hiking just before 8:30am (which is probably an "early record" for all of WA). Today was a fairly nice day of overcast with a sprinkle of sunbeams. Water was scarce today so we had to do some larger water carries (2L at one point and 3L at another), but fortunately most of the day was downhill. As in the style of the PNW, it sprinkled on and off all day, but we got to camp at the nice and early time of 5:30pm! I was with 3 other hikers and we built a campfire and chilled till dark. It rained tonight and some water pooled inside my tent because the puddles near my tent splashed from the raindrops- but it was fine.

9/20: (9.1 miles) Had to pack up in the light rain today. That's always annoying. Probably more annoying than setting up camp in the rain because my tent is one of the first things that has to be packed in my backpack- so everything else has to sit outside while I tear down the tent. But I got going around 9:20am and struggled up the first hill. Rain pants and a rain jacket protect you from getting wet via water from the sky, but up big hills they don't prevent you from getting wet via your own sweat (they don't breathe well). But by about 10:30 or 11:30 the rain had mostly stopped. At 11:45 I took a break and was consulting my maps when two things happened: I got 3G and I found a shortcut! The original plan was to hike another 22 miles today, then 5 into town tomorrow morning but this would cut it even shorter! When I got to the dirt road where I was going to break away and head down to I-90, I saw about 5 other hikers that I had been hiking with and a nice trail angel that was cooking taco soup, beer bread, cookies, etc for everyone! Score! And, because of hunting season, the traffic was pretty good on this road! So instead of hiking 4 miles down the dirt road to the I-90 on ramp, I hitched here and got a ride from some more mushroom hunters all the way to Snoqualmie Pass! Stayed in the Summit Inn last night in a hotel room! Dried my gear out all over the room and definitely took advantage of the hot tub! I'm now a day ahead of schedule. Canada, here I come!

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Winter is approaching

[These posts will be a bit shorter than usual as I am once again forced to use my phone. And, also, I'm pretty tired (and am leaving early in the morning)]

9/13: (10.4 miles) This morning I had breakfast at the Country Inn and after a shower and a final packing of supplies, I got a ride back to the trail. At the trailhead there was a nice couple waiting for a hiker friend of theirs with treats and goodies (which they invited me and some other hikers to take part in). Chocolate bars, ice cream, fruit! I started hiking and camped on the side of Mt. Adams. It got quite cold this night!

9/14: (21.6 miles) Got going late this morning as it was REALLY cold. I left camp around 9:45. Soon after starting it began to snow. Very light, harmless snow but around 11am it was cold enough (and snowing hard enough) to start coating everything. I quickly put on rain pants and headed out. As I dropped in elevation, snow turned to rain and eventually the rain stopped altogether. But it continued to be freezing cold all day long. I camped around dusk at a spot that had much less water than I would like (but still enough).

9/15: (21.6 miles) Again, going late because of the cold. No snow at all today, just freezing cold all day. Today was plenty of uphill. Had to go over Cispus Pass (not too hard. Just lots of work uphill). Also, Goats Rocks and something called the Knife's Edge. Yeah. VERY freaky. Walking over lots of loose rocks and snow on steep uphills/downhills where the path is about one foot wide and either side is a steep drop off. And did I mention the freezing wind? Yeah, the freezing wind. (See the picture below for "freaky factor"). After all that I rushed down the rest of the hill to get to my planned camping spot (next to a lake).

9/16: (12.3 miles) Nice morning. Got up at 7 and couldn't see my breath so that was a good sign. Got going by 8:30! Today is town day so I was eager to get there. In fact, so eager that I only took one break in the 12.3 miles of hiking today. I got to the highway right at 1pm and got picked up within the half hour and taken down to Packwood, WA. Paid $65 for a hotel room and I've been chilling in here since. Gotta head out early tomorrow!

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