Legs and Borders

It wasn't technically a post PCT day today as we still had to backtrack 15 miles from the Canadian border back to the Harts Pass. Once there we waited until 1pm for Camp Hosts wife to come over and pick us up from the trail back to the local town called Mazama. On the hike back I managed to meet two hikers I really didn't want to miss and say goodbye to Ravi and Shophie with whom I hiked for couple of days between Kennedy Meadows North and South Lake Tahoe and lo and behold they there were! Going straight to that border in the morning, I might still see them tomorrow at Mazama to have a celebratory beer, I hope they will make it. Before Camp Hosts wife came, the parking lot at the Harts Pass has been converted into a car repair station, we had a lady ask us to change a tire on her Toyota as it was flat and the other girl went through a metal rod on the sidewalk with her car trapping the rod underneath. Camp Host, Huh? myself and Mad Dog (which we met back in the desert section ...

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 woke up at 7am at George's house in North Bend, had a breakfast said our goodbyes to Fomo and got a lift back to Snoqualmie Pass, Zohan decided to have a zero day as he got a slight shin split. George dropped us off at Chevron gas station quarter mile from the trail, I had a coffee, everyone bought bits and bobs of resupply they have been missing and we went back on trail. It was ungodly hot today and walking on open ridges wasn't helping at all. I stayed well behind everyone else and didn't make good progress today but it was just enough, on top of the above there was a lot of altitude gaining so I'm happy with where I ended up today. At one point during the day we've been going on the ridge where military F16's were flying over a long valley and right on top of us Top Gun style, it was pretty impressive! You had to spot them beforehand because when you heard their sound the plane was already gone over the hill. I took a video of it, unfortunately the pilot ...