Legs and Borders

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 arr...

Busy and hot day on the trail, we ended up walking over 30 miles Camp Host pushed few miles ahead, hopefully we will be able to catch him tomorrow before the end line. Plan is to set up tents 15 miles before the border and slack pack it leaving most of the gear inside of it. It's going to be another long day but it should work out ok as we will be carrying less weight - I will still take all my food with me in case a bear or a mouse will decide to break in while I'm gone. We met a lot of people coming back from the border today (you have to backtrack 30 miles from it to the Harts Pass as the Canadian side is closed), there's quite a few Northbounders who decided to flip flop the hike (go southbound to eventually reach the point they stopped hiking north) because of the fires in Oregon, they hope that by the time they finish walking Washington fire situation will get better. Tomorrow is indeed the last day of my PCT adventure, I'm sure in the days to come I will have bet...

I've woke up still a little bit hangover at 6:15 in the morning, the bus was leaving Stehekin at 8am which gave me enough time to have a hiker box breakfast, I've mixed too many things though and it came out disgusting, I still ate 3/4 of it. Bus arrived on time but the driver said that he is fully booked, he can take us to the bakery two miles down the road though and potentially pick us up later, since we didn't have any better option we said yes, payed 5$ and hopped in. Everybody wanted to stop at the bakery anyway. I had a cinnamon roll an apple pie and a coffee once we arrived, the roll was seriously one of the finest pieces of baking I ever had, it was divine. Apple pie was average though and the coffee quite bad, that cinnamon roll though, yummy! After 20 minutes myself, Tank Top and Camp Host decided that we could actually try to catch a hitchhike to the trail head instead of waiting for the bus which would save us some time and money. We got it quite lucky, the fam...

It was a nice and easy hike down to Stehekin with no blow down trees or stream crossings along the way. I met Gasket and Mooch early in the morning going back to the Mexican border! I knew that Gasket I met briefly in North California is going for the best known time for the 'yoyo' PCT (hiking the trail north and southbound in one go), but Mooch has changed her mind (she was initially trying to cycle back to the border) and decided to yoyo the trail as well. What an inspirational duo, I'm considering yoyoing the Washington as well thanks to them, which in theory I would have just enough time to do before flying back to Europe. I managed to catch the first bus to Stehekin at 9am, it stopped at the superb German bakery few miles before town, where I had a sticky roll. Once we reached the town centre I went to do my laundry and to take a shower. Sonic graciously shared some of her resupply package with me again and I got the rest of the things I needed from the really well sto...

"We do not belong to those who only get their thought from books, or at the prompting of books, it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful." Nietzsche. I got awaken by a mixture of barking and howling from a bunch of coyotes, night in the cabin was quite cold but enjoyable. I got out of it few minutes past five and half a mile later just few hundred feet before the border, California gave me best goodbye present I could ask for, I saw a cougar, a mountain lion!  I never really comprehended just how big that cat is, it was a size of a cheetah, it appeared twenty metres in front of me on the trail and kept on walking in front of me for about thirty metres until it just vanished into the forrest. The cat wasn't in any hurry either it was surely aware of me and just slowly walking away. When it disappeared I got scared that it might suddenly ...

"They fixed the road for us last year and even painted this yellow line in the middle just for me! But I don't really care about it" Molly. Good day, I hiked into Etna, resupplied and decided that if I catch a hitchhike back on trail within 10 minutes I'll go back, Molly was there, saw my thumb sticking up and stopped.. fastest hitchhike in my life, this is the way. Camp Host managed to catch me up yesterday evening, he rolled in to the campsite I was just before sunset along with Can't Touch This who went the wrong way yesterday evening and ended up doing 38 miles to catch up. Trail leading to town was quite steep but at least there was a lot of streams available so we didn't have to worry about water carry. Everybody were rushing as people had hotel rooms booked, packages at the post office etc. I didn't have any reason to run except topping up my food so I was taking my time and enjoying the trail. At my final stop before town two bold chipmunks were ap...