Legs and Borders

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...

Long day to get me within the hiking distance to the 9am shuttle to Stehekin tomorrow. Weather was on the edge the entire day, the forecast was predicting the rain and it did rain slightly few times throughout the day but I guess we've been walking away from the clouds so it never got bad and some shade provided by them worked out really well. The 3200 feet ascent wasn't as bad as yesterday's big climb thanks to the lack of overgrowth and being more gradual overall. The blow down trees were present all day long though providing us with all sort of problem solving activities. Once we climbed out of the treeline the scenery became breathtaking, I think the ridge we could see to our left around the Fortress Mountain and Martin Peak is my favourite one of the entire trail, just looking at it makes you want to go and walk it somehow, I doubt there's any trail that goes over it. A beautiful beast though. I saw what might have been the oldest person so far on the trail while w...

"Keep in mind that Canadian Mounties ride moose, not horses. They ask that you do not approach quickly since the creatures, though well trained, startle more easily." Kodak Grind towards Stehekin continued today and as we walked Washington was showing us some claws. First of all after an hour climb with a gorgeous sunrise in the background, I went through the first pass of the day and it was too early. Night was quite cold and all the snow has frozen, making the first few traverses sketchy and time consuming. Next on the menu was a massive descent through a scenic valley which ended with a section full of blow down trees and a river crossing (it had a stone hopping/log walking option this time). Then there was another arduous climb to the top of the Fire Creek Pass which was full of snow on the descent, all slushy by now, so there was a lot of sliding involved. By that point I was running out of steam, but there was yet another climb to be done! 2500 feet up over 4 miles. To ...