At mile: 2652-Canada!

That's right, we're finally done. We are so so happy to be done hiking. It was a bit of a grind and frankly, the last few days were all around miserable.

Let's look at the last leg of our trip by the numbers:

150.9 Trail miles traveled since our last update. The fall colors have been amazing.

37.5 Trail miles closed due to wildfires

32.4 Miles hiked along detour routes

2 Shuttle buses taken to and from detour trailheads

1 Lake Chelan ferry boat between shuttle buses

6 plates of food total consumed at an all you can eat supper at Holden village church resort

1 Black eye for David courtesy of a slippery log on the trail

1 young moose spotted meandering along the path

4 days of great weather to savor 

5000 feet elevation is where the overnight rain turned to snow

1 full day hiked in a snowstorm

1 full day hiked in a rainstorm

3 full days without seeing the sun or any blue sky

1 pot of hot cocoa shared while huddled beneath the awning of a pit toilet

10 straight hours of rain needed to fully saturate the fabric of our tent and begin pooling inside

21 miles hiked yesterday, October 1st, without stopping to reach the Northern Terminus and complete our PCT thru hike

5 quick minutes spent at the Northern Terminus monument taking a few pictures. We didn't even take off our backpacks. It was too cold and wet for sentiment. And also, there were still:

8.4 Miles hiked into Canada to reach civilization

We actually didn't intend to finish yesterday. We were going to take our time and enjoy the last of the trail and cruise into Canada today. But then the weather turned horrible and since the best way to stay warm is to stay moving, we ended up walking further per day than we intended.

But that is okay, because yesterday, October 1st, has a special meaning to me and David:

5 years ago, on October 1st, we climbed Mt. Katahdin to finish our Appalachian Trail thru hike

3 hours waiting by the side of the road and a few hours smashed into the backseat of a Subaru and we are on our way back to the US to catch our flight

2200 mile flight back to Michigan and it kind of stings to know it will only take 5 hours to cover that distance...

Thanks everyone for following along with me and David on our adventure. Thinking of what to write in these posts occupied many hours of otherwise boring days hiking.

David and I are almost to the end of our journey. There are less than 200 trail miles until we are in Canada. There is only one more town stop in between where we are now and the end of the trail, which is exciting. Unfortunately, that last town is Stehekin, and apparently it is unreachable by road and also by internet, so we thought we would offer one last post of nice pictures while we can.

Crossing the road at Mt. Rainier National Park

Rainy day

Drying out our gear in a brief spot of sunshine

Mara on the trail way in the distance

Our only real worry now is the weather. Unsurprisingly for this area and time of year, we are periodically drenched by passing showers. Luckily it hasn't been cold enough yet to cause any serious trouble and we can usually find a patch of sun to dry things out at some point during the day.

On the way down into Snoqualmie Pass

Lunch with a view

A very literal milestone marker

Fall colors are starting to appear

Clouds sneaking lower

Lunch break at the peak

So here we go, on to the final stretch of the trip. Hopefully the next time you hear from me and David, we will be posing triumphantly by the monument at the Northern Terminus!

At mile: 2295

Hello friends!

Last time we wrote, David and I were in Sisters, Oregon. Since then, we have hiked around Mt.Jefferson and up the side of Mt. Hood to Timberline Lodge where we took full advantage of an all you can eat buffet.

The trail then descended all the way into the Columbia River Gorge and we crossed into Washington on the Bridge of the Gods. Crossing into our last state felt dramatic, but it was hard to concentrate on the moment because there is no space for pedestrians on the bridge and we had to focus on not getting clipped by cars.

We are well into the state of Washington now, and overall, it has been great. David has been pumped to be back in his home state and we are really settled in to our trail groove. But more recently, the unpredictable weather of the Cascades have really been doing a number on us.

For the past three days, we have been consistantly wet and cold. Everything we own has been slowly and steadily drenched in the intermittant drizzle of the Pacific Northwest. It has been raining 50% of the time, sunny for 25%, and somehow both raining and sunny for the rest. I've caught on to the forecasters here, learning that a 40% chance of rain really means there is a 100% chance it will rain 40% of the day. David is already a pro at handling this climate, but even he agrees it's miserable to put on wet and cold socks in the morning.

Yesterday, David and I had to bundle up our wet things and step out of the relative comfort of our tent and into the rain. We hiked uphill for a few miles, climbing more completely into the cloud that had covered us since waking. We ended up at the end of the knife's edge, a thin and steep ridge we had to follow. I'm sure the drop offs on either side of the mile-long ridge were terrifyingly dangerous, but we couldn't tell because we were caught in a snow storm and couldn't see anything more than a few feet in front of us. When the sun peeked out for twenty minutes in the afternoon to thaw us out, David and I were so excited we were literally screaming and howling at the sky in delight. We finally marched into Packwood, Washington last night by way of a truly terrible fire detour. It was actually the second fire detour, because a fire broke out on the first fire detour.

Today though, we are cozy and warm. Our clothes are clean and our gear is drying out. We're going to hit the trail again later in the day and hopefully we can stay mostly dry as we head up to Snoqualmie and the final leg of our trip.

At mile: 1983

We are in Oregon! For now at least. After spending 3.5 months traipsing the length of California, our time in Oregon will be remarkably brief. We will probably only be in this state for another week. Which is a shame, because we really like it here.

The trail has been easy.

Our surroundings are beautiful.

There are trees!

But sometimes trees fall down.

And sometimes trees burn up.

We've made a few friends.

And passed a few milestones.

We have had clear skies.

And hazy days.

But mostly importantly, we keep trucking north. There are less than 700 miles left to hike, and even fewer until we reach David's home state of Washington. For the first time since we began hiking, it really feels like every step is moving us closer to home.

Wednesday-I woke up right around 6:00 am because I heard a strange noise from outside. Sure enough, a chipmunk was outside the tent trying to drag my food bag away. It was way too heavy, but he had the last laugh because I later realized while he hadn't managed to get away with the whole bag, he was able to shimmy inside and chew a hole through my bag of Chili Cheese Fritos. By 7:00 David is awake but groggy and we can hear rustling from other hikers who had been camped just across the trail. Compared to many other hikers, we let ourselves sleep in a little. I heard three people pass us before 6:30.

The morning air smells like smoke, so the wind must have shifted overnight, but the sky seems fairly clear. A doe and her fawn visit us as we are brushing our teeth and packing up. We hit the trail around 8:20. There are 33 miles to our next resupply in Etna, so the goal for the day is to get far enough that our Thursday morning hike in isn't too bad.

The first four miles of the day are uphill. Its not steep and there is a good view of cows grazing in the valley below, cowbells jangling. The sky is blue and we can actually see into the distance a little. It's a nice way to start the morning.

David and I stop to collect water after 5 miles but dump it out and refill at a better source a hundred yards further down the trail. The whole morning we leapfrog with six or so other hikers. Some are new faces, some we see regularly, which happens when we are all marching along at roughly the same pace.

An important thing to know is that for most of the day, David and I do not hike together. I'm usually 2-10 minutes ahead on the trail. I can always tell when David has closed the distance between us because he starts hooting and hollering at me. We can sometimes see each other depending on the terrain, but most of the time we will just meet up at water sources and when we want to eat lunch.

So the biggest portions of our days are spent alone, just walking along the path. This can get very boring. We find ways to entertain ourselves, mostly by listening to a lot of music and podcasts.

Things I do well while hiking:

1. Applying sunscreen
2. Counting tiny animals (11 chipmunks before lunch!)
3. Untangling earbud cords
4. Making mental lists of things to look up when we get into town (What percentage of pinecones grow up to be trees? Why does that grasshopper click when it flies?)

Things David does well while hiking:

1. Keeping a lookout for bears (none so far)
2. Swatting debris off the trail with his trekking poles
3. Popping water bottles out of the side pocket of his pack with one hand
4. Taking care of business on his phone

Around 12:35 I stopped in the shade of some pines near a small stream. David shows up a few minutes later and we find a flat tent spot to lay out my sleeping pad and eat lunch. David wanted to stop earlier but there is no way to communicate these kinds of things. Still, we managed 12.2 miles before lunch which feels productive.

After lunch it seems that the smoky haze around us has grown thicker as we climb up a series of steep hills. We cross a mountain road and there is actually vehicles traveling on it, and it seems strange because we feel very much in the wilderness.

The trail travels through pastures and meadows and eventually up on to a burnt out ridge. It's hot and we sweat a lot. It's easy to find things to complain about.

Things we are grumping about today:

1. We aren't seeing many views because of the smoke and ash.
2. Bees won't leave us alone at lunch. (turns out bees love tuna)
3. It's hot.
4. There is an eight mile stretch between decent water sources.
5. The trail keeps going upwards for no good reason.

We settle into a campsite right before 8:00 pm 24.5 miles from where we started. There is only space for one or two tents and all the surrounding trees are scorched black from a recent fire, but it'll do for the night. David and I clean our legs and feet, change into camp clothes and then set up the tent because mosquitos have found us. We eat dinner in the tent, polishing off the food in our food bags, and are tucked away in our sleeping bags before 9:00. David and I sleep so well out here, even with weird nature noises and less than ideal tent sites.

We wake up right before 7:00 am on Thursday and get hiking early (for us) around 7:40. Our good start is partly because we are pumped to get to town and partly because we don't eat breakfast (because we don't have any food).

It isn't completely downhill to the road, but we make good time and show up right after 11:00. There are two hikers already waiting by the road, a pair of Aussie guys we know pretty well by now. There is very little traffic on this road so we settle in for a wait, occasionally swatting friendly bees off our skin.

Tips for hitching a ride:

1. Find a spot where cars have enough time to notice you and enough space to pull over.
2. Collapse trekking poles so as not to appear threatening.
3. Put backpack in plain view so you aren't mistaken for a run-of-the-mill vagrant.
4. Smile and try not to look dangerous

Tips for once you get picked up:

1. Be appreciative
2. Be charming. Its clear that picking up hikers becomes a part of the story of someone's day. Give them a nice story.
3. Mine for information. Locals know the best food.
4. Concentrate on not smelling bad.

The first car we see stops to give us a ride. It is a rarely traveled road though, so we do wait 15 minutes for that first car. David and I squeeze in the car with 3 other waiting hikers.

Next step is to pick up the shoes that David had mailed to himself then work on getting rehydrated and filling our bellies while we do town chores.

Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into trail life!

At mile: 1407

So friends, David and I had a plan to present a day in our life where we would recap a full day of our hike and you all could follow along and feel like you were out here with us. We chose a day and kept track of all the things we did that day. Except when we got to camp that night, we realized that it had been the most boring day on the trail so far.

Seriously.

The most exciting thing that happened to David was that he saw another hiker trip and fall. The most exciting thing that happened to me was that I saw a deer with twin fawns and I accidentally walked up on another hiker pooping behind a rock.

Mostly the day was boring because the trail for the last 80 miles has been a hot and flat piece of garbage. It is dry and dusty and we are surrounded by desert plants again. It might be pretty off in the distance but we can't see more than a couple hundred feet because the sky is hazy with smoke and ash. We can't smell smoke very often, but it is thick enough that in the mornings and evenings when the sun is near the horizon, it is dim and orange.

So we're sorry. You'll get the 'Day in the Life' post later when we aren't as miserable and the hike is more entertaining. For now, here are some pictures of our hazy hike from the last couple days.

At Mile: 1267.9

We are firmly in Northern California now, the most mysterious of the five sections of trail (Desert, Sierras, NorCal, Oregon, Washington). Prior to the start of our adventure we heard rumors about everywhere else: the Sierras are beautiful but difficult, the Washington section gets rainy, the Desert is long and hot, Oregon is easy enough for consistent 30+ mile days. Nobody mentions NorCal. We didn't know what to expect.

Here is what we have discovered so far:

1. Less mosquitos. Not no mosquitos, but most certainly less mosquitos. We get the odd bite here and there, but there has been nothing like the swarms we encountered in and around Yosemite.

2. There are trees. Glorious trees. Gone are the waist high scrub bushes of the desert and bare alpine slopes of the Sierras, where patches of trees were scattered and inconsistent. Here we are walking through lush, towering pine forests. Here my dorky sun hat gets tucked away well before sundown. Here cool air hides in the shade offered by branches heavy with needles. Here our beautiful mountaintop views are revealed to us slowly, at first in brief glimpses, and then all at once when we reach the top and have truly earned them.

3. There is still water. It isn't as plentiful as the streams of snowmelt we grew accustomed to in the Sierras, but there is enough. There is nothing more refreshing than drinking icy cold spring water straight from the earth. Have I mentioned we stopped filtering our water 500 miles ago?

4. We are hiking machines. All the obstacles that slowed us down before: being out of shape, having to carry 30 miles worth of water, altitude, piles of rocks that made natural momentum-destroying steps on the trail, all of those things are gone. David and I can now hike uphill for 4 straight hours and we don't need to stop to catch our breath. Our natural pace is faster than ever and our average daily mileage has increased as a result. We have had to readjust our expectations when making plans, because the town that used to be almost five days away is now less than four and we can leave town in the afternoon and still hike 15 miles before dark.

5. It is hot. I know that this summer is hot pretty much everywhere. But we live outside. And we hike all day. It only takes one time getting dressed in the morning and feeling the damp, clammy, residue on our sweat soaked clothes that did NOT dry overnight to feel absolutely disgusting. When we hitch rides into town, we apologize for whatever stench we carry with us and discreetly open the car windows.

6. It is still very dry. There is no soil, only dust. And the trees that fall down in this glorious forest don't rot and return to the earth, they dessicate. They stack up like terrestrial driftwood. And the forest is a tinder box. It is not on fire yet, but it's only a matter of time.

7. California is enormous. David and I are almost to the half way point of the PCT and after that we will still be in this gargantuan state for 350 more miles. It seems like NorCal is the most common place for hikers to quit the trail and we get it. There is something demoralizing about the amount of time it takes to get to another place.

At Mile: 1017

We didn't know it at the time, but our stop in Mammoth Lakes marked the end of the most extreme portion of the Sierras. We only hiked for two days out of Mammoth before reaching Tuolomne Meadows and a paved road. It was the first road we had crossed in 250 miles and it was filled with tourists, so we hitched a ride down the hill and into the tiny town of Lee Vining. It was a nice little town, and it turns out we were still tired from all those mountain passes, so we stayed a couple nights.

Mammoth Lakes

Since then, the trail has mellowed out a bit as we crossed into the glacier carved landscapes of Yosemite National Park. There are still passes to cross over (Donohue, Benson, Seavey, Dorothy Lake, Sonora) but they are more moderate and largely free of snow. The trail has spent more time weaving haphazardly around boulder piles, pine forests, and meadow valleys and less time trudging strictly up and down.

Our real battle lately has been with mosquitos. Swarms often keep us from relaxing, even with head nets and DEET. When we get to a tentsite in the evening, we have to set up our tent as fast as possible, throw everything inside and climb in after it. Then we have to spend 10 minutes killing all the mosquitos that followed us in. We end up frustrated and trapped inside the tent with dozens of mosquito carcasses. We are both really hoping that it won't get any worse.

The 1000 mile mark was on the trail yesterday. David and I are excited to have made it this far, but it is discouraging to realize how far we still are from the halfway point and farther still, the end of California.

Thank goodness for switchbacks

Marmot friend

Mule train!

Looking gnarly

Checking the nutritional value of cool ranch Doritos

Capturing the back sweat

At Mile 745.3

We are resting up today in Lone Pine, CA. As we approached Kennedy Meadows and then as we left it behind, the trail has slowly been transitioning from high desert into the high Sierras. Sagebrush and chapparel is slowly giving way to soft pines and huge boulders. The countless lizards that scurried around the trail are gone and instead there are chipmunks and marmots darting around in our periphery. Carrying water for 20+ miles has quickly become a distant memory, as we step across springs and mountain streams many times a day. It is a strange feeling to suddenly have the option to pass by clear, cold water because we already have enough.

We strolled into the dusty town of Kennedy Meadows Tuesday afternoon and there were probably 40 other hikers applauding as we walked up, a PCT tradition. There are only three places to go in Kennedy Meadows: general store, outfitters, and a bar/restaurant, so the hikers effectively swarm the place. We did laundry, ate burgers and fries, met a cool lady at the bar who fed us dessert and let us shower at her house, caught up with friends who have been a day or two ahead of us for a while, and picked up food to last the next few days.

We also had to make another addition to our packs: a bear canister, a hard plastic tub that will have to hold all of our food for the next 400 miles. The bear canister is bulky, heavy, and has a 'bear-proof' screw top with latches that is proving so hard to open it seems more 'human-proof.' Our next resupply will be in 9-10 days. We had to get creative with our food choices to fit this amount into the canister, and even so, we will have to ration ourselves to make it last.

So here we go. We will be out there for nine or ten days, in some of the most remote and beautiful sections of trail yet. Hopefully we will come out on the other side with tons of stories, pictures, and moderately full bellies. Wish us luck!