Day 143, ~28.1 miles!!

I woke up early this morning, partly because I was so excited to hit the border and partly because my pillow had deflated completely underneath my head. Either way, it was time to go! I hit the trail by 7am. 

There are certain people that I’ve hiked with in the past where I’ve had fast-forward dreams of they and I finishing together. Julian was the first, I miss you bud! And then young Happy and Trout. And then Manza, and lastly the group that I had hiked with for about a week in Washington. But alas, there I was alone, charging up the mountain! Just like how I started, and just like how I’ve been so many times, lost in my own thought and energy. 

I thought I would think of things of an epic sort today, that I’d have revolutions about my life or what I should do after this hike. But honestly, I just thought about what I always think about; Everything and nothing at once. I did math; I found out that this hike this year has taken up 1/68th of my ENTIRE LIFE thus far. That’s 1.4% of my life. There was no music today, no podcasts. Just me and my thoughts.

And horses!

I did get to see some horses and pack animals in the morning which was a cool way to start the day. It snowed on me a little, and then a little sprinkle of rain here and there. The fall colors were gorgeous and I tried to take as many photos as I could on my last day on trail!

I eventually got off the alternate and back onto the PCT. Knowing that this would be the last time I would have to bushwhack on a low use path to hike around a fire felt SO great! The PCT was wide and inviting and graded well. The miles flew by.

I came across a huge slate ridge. I had my head down focusing on my feet and the narrow path ahead, knowing full well that a slip and/or slide would be bad news. Something caught my upper peripheral, and I liked up to see something running towards me. It was a marmot! It was full on running towards me as fast as he could on the trail. It threw me so off guard that I actually stopped dead in my tracks. It continued charging and I reared up... “Do marmots attack people?” I thought. It stopped about 6ft in front of me. Looked at me quizzically, and only after I said “Hey marmot!” our loud did it scurry uphill and sit on his observatory rock. So crazy!

Looking back at Marmot Ridge

Amidst the sprinkling snow and the tall peaks like the one above, I finally started descending down. I knew that every step I took after each that was before it would take me further out of the pristine mountains and the place I’ve grown to love so much over these past months. I stopped and turned and said “Goodbye”. It was time to end this great escape; it was time to go home.

Suddenly full of energy I bolted downhill like a madman! Nothing could stop me. Fatigue and weariness were nonexistent, and only excitement remained. I checked Guthooks on my phone, I was less than two miles away! The beautiful fall colors gave me one last amazing show just before I hurdled down into the thicker forest.

I can’t outshine these leaves!

The last hour or half-hour or whatever it was flew by so quickly! I turned to go down a switchback when the forest opened up in front of me and I could see the borderline! 

Everything to the left of that thin line is WA and everything to the right is Canada! 

Oh my gosh I can’t believe how close I was! Now zooming down the last few switchbacks I was barely looking where I was going, just searching for that monument! I saw a couple hikers sitting to my right and realized I was there! To my left was the most beautiful sight for these sore eyes!

CANADA!!!!!!!!

Rocky from Hungary was there along with Pabst and Power Mode, and Pirate! After hugging the monument for a good 10’secomds, I had Rocky take some pictures of me!

Strong to the Finish!! (Dad bought Claire and I these shirts in 2016, and I carried it up from

Mazama for this moment)

I can’t believe it!! I’ve walked from Mexico all the way to Canada!! Oh my goodness! No words or text can describe what I felt, so you guys will just have to believe me when I try and explain; this is the most proud but humbled and strong but tired and huge but small and invincible but thoroughly exhausted that I’ve ever felt! What a range of emotion!

It started to rain just after these photos, so I sat down under some cover and popped open my border beer which I also packed out from Mazama. As I was sitting and talking to the other hikers, Mougs rolled in! 

4/20/18 - 9/14/18

It was so neat to finish on the same day as someone who started on the same day as me! Yeah Mougs! Cardboard and Meegan were close behind, and everyone got their pictures taken and we celebrated our great feat!

Pabst with probably the best finishing pic ever!

At about 3:30pm I decided I’d better get a love on towards Manning Park. I thought I’d be totally dead but I had so much energy! I ran up the next hill that goes up for a few miles, and then down for a few, ending our hike with 8.5 “bonus” miles after we’ve already finished. This was a time for music and distraction as my wet and soggy legs and feet pounded their way towards the fabled hot tub!

Thank you Canada!

Haha, not closed for US!!

Made it!!

I checked in at the lodge for a $40 room at the hostel. No more cramming on the floor and sharing costs with 3-4 other hikers, it was time to live in luxury! ... Well sort of..

Hanging my rainfly and socks to dry in my tiny room

I went to the restaurant at the lodge and had poutine and a huge baby spinach salad! My two strongest cravings of the last 50 miles! Then it was off to the hot tub where I was joined by Pirate, Rocky, and waaaaaaay too many super loud kids! (Like 20+ no joke). It was ok, we made it! Our hike was over! I was stuffed from a great dinner, my legs were soaking in a hot tub, and life couldn’t be better! 

Pirate (70 years old!)

Older Happy

I realized that there’s been some people that I’ve talked about recently but that I haven’t taken pictures of! This is me purely being lazy. But here’s Pirate and Happy (taken at breakfast the next morning). I really wanted to get a picture of Rocky because I’ve run into her so much recently and she is really cool, but I forgot to the night before and she didn’t eat breakfast in the restaurant in the morning. 

The next day I hitched for about 6 hours to get to Seattle, and then I caught a Bolt Bus back to Portland. I have a feeling that I’m going to have some reflections and stats and other miscellaneous things to write about in the near future, so stay tuned! 

My goal was to hike 2,650 miles in under 150 days. With all the fire alternates and extra side trips, it was closer to 2,700 and I did it in 143 days! (148 if you count the 5 “off-trail” days I took when Claire came to visit. Still under my goal!) Whoo!! I’ve done it! I don’t know what else to say besides a super huge, genuine, from the bottom of my heart, extra extra big...

🇲🇽Thanks for reading!!! 🇨🇦

Day 142, ~27.9 miles!!

Well last night it again didn’t rain at all!! Im starting to like this weather being not as scary as forecasted! I packed up and started up a super big hill with lots and lots of switchbacks. I was soon shrouded in clouds and mist, and it looked really neat from way up high.

Soon, it started snowing!! Nothing too crazy, just a few flakes coming down and a little blustery wind. I actually prefer a little snow compared to cold rain as my gloves don’t get all wet and my hands can stay warm! It’s hard to capture the flakes in photos, but I tried!

See the snow?

Don’t worry I have other gloves, I just kept these holy gloves for hiking! 

The snow picked up and it got even colder. It was actually really neat to be up on the breezy ridge in the snow. I was watching how quickly the clouds were moving in and out of the valleys and over the ridges.

I went through patches of flurries and then sun, on and off for a couple hours. Sometimes I would get hot in my rain jacket, take my hood off, and then have snowflakes falling in the sun! I’m just glad it wasn’t too cold of a day and with on and since I was on a huge ridge traverse, it was not too hard to keep my body temperature regulated. 

The sun started breaking through, and at one point I had a nice sunny ridge in front of me and directly behind me was a flurry blizzard!

Ahead of me

Right behind me!

The trail dropped downward and soon I came across Hart’s Pass. Hart’s Pass is 35 miles from the Canadian border and it’s the last place you can hitch out of to get back to Mazama or Winthrop. It’s also the place where people who don’t have their passport or entry to Canada permit have to walk back down to after touching the border. 

I saw about 6 other hikers there, two of which had finished already and were waiting for a ride to get back to civilization. I also saw Upstream and Older Happy, and a couple others. The sun had popped out and I laid out my stuff to dry. Although it hadn’t rained my tent was still wet from condensation and most likely a low mist overnight. The sun only lasted a few minutes, and then it started sprinkling again. That was my que to leave!

The trail from Hart’s Pass going North is closed and our final fire detour alternate starts. I took the side trail up Slate Peak and and then started down into a beautiful valley.

Going up Slate Peak

Looking back towards Hart’s Pass

On the way down I ran into a few hikers coming back southbound who had just finished the trail yesterday! First I saw Panda and his dad, and a few minutes later I saw Skywalker! My stoke got more real as I passed by these people, quickly approaching the end of my long journey!

Panda!

A beautiful valley!!

Down down down I dropped into the low valley. There were plenty of mushroom varieties I had never seen before! The alternate was surprisingly well maintained and well signed. I never felt like I was unsure of which direction to go.

About 14 miles past Slate Peak I got down to the Pasayten River. At this point the alternate heads West and starts traversing a valley ridge on the way back to the PCT. I figure this would be a great place to stop especially since I had already done a big day. I’ll definitely be able to hit the northern terminus tomorrow and probably go all the way to Manning! I’m flying!!

At camp I had sweet surprise. I saw Mougs! I met him way back on day one, and it was cool to think that we’ll now be finishing on the same day as well! i set up my tent in a sweet little spot nestled in a bunch of trees in case of heavy rain, but at this point I figure I’ll be pretty safe :)

I got a little sad when I realized this will be the last time I set up my tent for a while, but also kind of glad at the same time! I’m almost back home to my warm bed and roof over my head! Well, needless to say but I’m SUPER excited to finish tomorrow! I hope I can actually sleep tonight!

Thanks for reading! 

Day 141, 18.3 miles

I slept in nice and late in my super big tent. I don’t think it rained at all last night! So much for the thunderstorms and 1/4 inch of rain! I’ve decided that I can’t trust the weather forecast for this area, since little pocket micro-climates exists all over in the hills and valleys, and since we really are headed into winter now in the Pacific Northwest. That being said, here’s some scary forecasts for these next few days right where I’ll be hiking: 

I hopped on one of the bikes and headed to breakfast! The restaurant behind the store was open and I had some French toast and some great potatoes! I actually caught some decent WiFi there and was able to write and upload yesterday’s blog. After I ate and drank everything on the table (including all the water in the pitcher), I jumped back on the bike and headed back to the Roost.

Initially I was going to hitch out later in the afternoon and just do 10 miles today. I wanted to wait until Claire’s lunch break from school so I could call her since Mazama actually has decent service in town. However, when I checked the elevation profile of the next section it appeared that 10 miles would land me way up high on a pass in the possible bad weather. I decided to dip out earlier to try and get 15 miles, up and over the next pass and back to lower elevation for the night. .

I was expecting a tough hitch but I was pleasantly surprised when I got picked up in less than 10 minutes. My deiver’s name was Ben, and he was a really cool guy! He has two younger kids who he likes to take backpacking. He and his wife also do trips themselves and sometimes he just goes into the mountains solo. He even gave me some sausage links from the local meatery, so good! 

After getting dropped off, I walked the ~0.3 miles to the trailhead and met two hikers named Cardboard and Meegan. I didn’t realize this at first but I had met Meegan way back in the desert when she had a different trailname: Squirrel. She was with Mougs that day Julian and I made new friends around a fire in the rain when multiple people burned their shoes and socks by trying to dry them out!

From Rainy Pass the trail climbed up for awhile. One thing I’m gonna miss is all the neat water sources along this trail. I’ve gotten so used to just filling my bottle up with clear and cold water from beautiful mossy cascades tumbling down the mountainsides. I guess a sink in a house is fine too! 

It seemed like the weather didn’t know if it wanted to rain or not. I had my rain jacket on just incase. I broke out above the trees and started getting some sweet views of the surrounding area.

I came around a corner and hit Cutthroat Pass, and my camera stopped working!! This was a bummer because this was such a cool area! I was way up high and exposed and the ridges and peaks around me were spectacular. There was still sun directly where I was but all around me I could see gray clouds and rain falling straight down in the distance. What a crazy sight! Just sheets and veils of distant rain, and then sunshine where I was! 

I descended down from Cutthroat Pass area and down into a lower valley travers. After a couple hours and turning my phone on and off, it finally started working again. At one point I turned a corner and could see that the trail was headed right into one of the walls of rain!

Looking back to the sunny side where I came from

When I hit the rain area, I got way colder, and my fingers gradually became super cold and numb. I found that they do that when I’m using my trekking poles because the straps sort of cut off the circulation in my hand making my fingers freeze up way faster than they normally would. I always use my poles, so my fingers always get cold.

2,600 miles baby!!

The trail dropped way down into the next valley, and with some tree cover and much lower elevation, I started to warm up again. The sun started to pop back out, and soon it looked like noon on a sunny day instead of 5:30pm on a rainy one! In the trees I kept seeing a “new” type of mushroom that I haven’t seen before. I call them Manta Shrooms.

A Manta Shroom

I had picked out a spot on the map that I wanted to camp. It was the lowest in the valley, had water, and was just before a big climb for the next day. About 3 miles before I got there I saw Rachel and Alcatraz. They told me that they had seen about 5 other hikers headed to thatbsame site, and they were sure there would be no more room there so they had stopped earlier. Since it wasn’t even 6pm yet I decided to keep going. I’m pretty good at finding sites to camp at!

When I got to the stream and camping area I saw Caribou, Streetfighter, and guy named Dragon who had flipped up to Washington from further back on the trail to beat the bad weather. I ate my dinner with everyone and then headed into the thick trees to scope out a site. I ended up finding a flat one tucked away in the trees so I’d be protected from potential rain tonight. It’s getting real guys!! :)

Thanks for reading!!