PCT day 113 - mile 2631 to mile 2653 (US/Canada border, the end)

The walk is over, today I finally reached the terminus at the US/Canada border. I was waiting for this moment for the last four months, chipping away at it mile after mile until there was no more miles left. But now when it's over I can definitely agree that it was all about the way not the destination.

It's still too early to come to some kind of conclusions about this whole experience so I'll just keep it simple and describe what happened today.

I woke up early as usual, ate some excellent cinnamon oats with chocolate I cold soaked over night (it's definitely one of my regrets that I didn't start to cold soak breakfasts earlier). I walked three miles down the trail and managed to catch up with Camp Host packing up his tent. We agreed last evening that we would set up camp 15 miles from the border, and then slack pack down to the monument and back, which would give us only another 15 miles to walk down to Harts Pass the following day. We did just that, I've arrived at the designated campsite at 9am, set up, had an additional meal as it would be a big 38 mile day for us and I had no reason to horde food anymore, the trail was almost over.

We reached the terminus at about 3pm, Sonic and Huh? were there already, all six of us had a little celebration, took pictures and signed the register. Then we chilled in the area for half an hour, I took a wee on the Canadian side of the border for good measure and we started to make our way back to the camp. It was a sizable climb of about 3000 feet out of the border so we been approximating to reach the camp about 9:30pm, we managed to get back a little bit earlier. The sunset as we were walking down to the camp was amazing, moon was big and surrounded by colorful clouds, we could see many jagged peaks in an open plain highlighted by the sun. Last evening on PCT felt very serene.

As we arrived at the camp we have been greeted by Lucky who spotted our tents earlier and decided to stay over for the night to say goodbye. Huh?, Sonic and Fast Lane we met at Stehekin were also staying at the campsite. We sat together and talked while having our evening meals, it was great to reconnect with all of those people for the last time before heading back to the post hike reality. We shared something truly unique and memorable over those last few months, I'm sure we will remember a lot of the moments for the rest of our lives.

And this is how it ends, I might keep on posting more until I'm still in US, I'm not quite sure what's the next move from here but I will try to work it out within the next two days. The Pacific Crest Trail adventure is over though and it has a happy ending!

Huh?:
Chewy:
Lucky:

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