On August 14th I began my last leg of the Pacific Crest Trail. I joined Bill Redman, the man I started the trail with on May 27th, 2003 for the final 120 miles to the Northern Terminus at the Canadian border. We flew together to Seattle to meet Luke Reinsma whom we'd both met in hikes along the way. He drove us nearly three hours to the remote trail-head where we left the trail a year ago because of fires. Luke hoped to join us for a day on the trail but was under the weather. We missed our good friend's conversation and knowledge of flora and fauna. We remembered the 7 or so miles to the PCT as mostly flat or rolling trail, but we were wrong. There was a lot of gain in altitude. Glad it was a short day.
I've been asked many times before this trip, "What's next?" Frankly, I don't know. I do have a feeling of inertia. I've been moving north in this fabulous adventure for so long I know I'll do another long trail; when and where, not sure. I do know for me it's not about being in nature, which is fine and astoundingly beautiful. I don't hike to find peace in the wilderness. The only Zen you’ll find at the top of the mountain is the Zen you bring up with you. It's the adventure and the challenge that drives me, a feeling of accomplishment, learning you have the grit, drive, discipline and dream to pull off something this big.
Before we hit the trail Luke said, "I've never filtered water up here and never had a problem, but don't take my advice." We did take his advice with the exception of a few streams that horses and llamas had visited and have had no problems.
The next day, August 15, included a big climb, about 3600 feet in 11 miles, the biggest gain in altitude for the whole section. We were exhausted by the end of the day. We crossed our first log bridge
at
Miner's Creek. We didn't expect to meet any through-hikers on this trip, but much to our amazement we were passed by Sweet Virginia and Grey Squirrel. These were among the fastest through-hikers on the trail. Sweet Virginia was a young lady but Grey Squirrel must have been 65. My motto is, "Exercise is the closest thing to the Fountain of Youth." It has proved true for me and many others. Bill and I were exhausted after the first full day on the trail. It had the biggest continuous climb of the whole trip. The trail started to open up and we got some
grand and lovely
views.
The next day was 14 miles downhill to Stehekin, but it didn't feel much easier. We ran into trail legend
Billy Goat who was doing a "Three Legged Hike". Imagine if your will hiking for a little while, putting down your pack, hiking back in the direction from which you just came for a little while, hiking back to your pack, picking up your pack and repeat. What a unique fellow. He's 77 and has logged roughly 35,000 miles. I've seen him 3 times on the trail and Bill has seen him twice. He loves to be recognized. He is famous for saying, "The
Pacific Crest Trail is 2650 miles long but only this wide," holding his hands out about 2 feet apart. We're big fans. As we left he put his hand on Bill's shoulder and said, "Walking is life." A moment of of Zen with Billy Goat.
Near the end of that day we ran into a Grandpa hiking with two teenage grandkids. They were out of water and wanted to know if they'd be fine without it to their campsite 5 miles futher. I said, "Go back to the
river behind you and fill up now." They only had one Nalgene bottle each. I carry enough bottles for 5 liters, and Bill 3. Water is life on the trail.
We were pretty beat up when we got to the
High Bridge Ranger station and the road to Stehekin.
We took the 10-mile bus ride to Stehekin and got our first dose of the
Stehekin Pastry Company along the way - delicious. The claim is that
Stehekin is the most remote
town in the United States. It might be a Chamber of Commerce brag but it must be close to the truth. No roads lead there. A 4 hour ride on the "Lady of the Lake" brings you there from Chelan. You can fly in on a seaplane, take a fast boat, hike or ride a horse in. That's it. It is beautiful. Situated on the north end of
Lake Chelan and walled by steep mountains, it's a stunning location. As soon as we got off the bus we picked up our resupply boxes, the only ones of the trip, from the cutest post office manned by a gray-haired senior postmaster wearing an eye patch. A long term resident retired from contracting, he quipped, "This is my old man job." He couldn't have been more helpful. He directed me to a secret power plug to recharge my devices. We showered, replenished our food and supplies and got a permit for camping the next day at what has to be the most beautiful
Ranger station, old, huge, originally a hotel now restored. We lounged and ate slowly on the patio of the North Cascades Lodge at Stehekin that night. While the society was very good and the service was delightful, the food was terrible. Any real hotel or food chain in this great country would be a vast improvement. I've had a feeling for a long time that the concessions in National Parks have gone to the wrong companies. They get the contract on the lowest bid then do as little as possible to squeeze out the biggest profit. They have good people, but they are poorly led and poorly supported. Although there was a lot of good talk with hikers on the porch, the privately owned "
Ranch at Stehekin" would have been a better choice. Two people in town, a bus driver and bakery worker, were former PCT through-hikers.
The next morning, August 17, camping permit in hand - the only one needed for this section - we took the bus to High Bridge Ranger station and walked north. With a stop at the Pastry Company we were ready. You always hope for a gentle climb on a hike, and this one was that.
We passed
Howard Lake, formerly known as
Coon Lake. We'd heard that Washington State commission had investigated the names history and changed it. My knee jerk reaction was political correctness overreach. I was wrong. "Coon Lake" was a pejorative for an African American miner who'd lived there in the late 1800's. It was a good idea to change the name. We ran into a lady on the trail who swam in it. "Once you got out beyond the lily pads it was great," she said.
It's always nice to see
signs so you know you're headed in the right
direction. Homestretch passed us that day. Gotta love trail names. There were few huckleberries this year, even though there are usually more at higher altitudes. I like snacking on them but only found a few worth eating. Two hiking groups we passed saw bears today. I've only seen one in 2650 miles but I'm sure many have seen me. We saw several groups and families that were unfit, unprepared, overweight and overloaded. Several looked like the
peddler in
the movie Labyrinth. I salute them for being on the trail, but I hope their experience doesn't put them off hiking.
We camped at Six Mile Camp, off trail a bit. It's dispiriting to have to climb up to a campsite after a long, hard day. As I started to set up my tent, I heard a nearby tree with a split on the trunk making cracking noises. I moved my tent to another part of camp and hoped it wouldn't fall in the night. Luckily, it didn't. I tied my permit to a tree nearby and forgot to take it with us the next morning. Hope I don't get fined for littering! Overnight a full moon made me think I'd overslept again. A weird experience: So bright outside you're sure it's past sunrise. Late that night while we were snug in our tents, Scout Troop 120 walked into camp. The next morning before dawn, the Scout leader, an experienced hiker, questioned me extensively about my gear, experiences, and opinions about hiking as we packed up in the dark. I rarely meet people who ask more questions than I do and are good listeners. This guy, a grandfather, some of his Scout grand kids in tow, was the apotheosis.
Leaving camp that morning, we met Brave Hamster, a through-hiker going south at Rainy Pass who had cut her foot. She said, "I was hoping for a 30- mile day with my friends but decided to go to
Mazama to have it looked at." A pack train of Llamas passed us; we found out later that they were support for a PCT trail crew. Quite a sight. We ran into
Peanut and her dog at
Cutthroat Pass. We'd heard of her. She had ridden her bicycle from Portland to San Diego to start the trail, but stopped in the Sierra for some reason. She fell in love with a Pit Bull pup in Portland, and was walking south with it. Sweet young lady.
Dramatic views, twists, climbs and switchbacks today. We found a good stream to fill up our bottles before continuing to the PCT Trail camp at mile 2598. The trail volunteers had done yeoman work on a gravelly, rock-slide-prone and shifting portion of the trail. We found their large
camp and camped with these civic minded people, most of whom are age 50 and above. After some talk at dinner I did a
magic show for them. It was the best room I've ever worked, and it was at 6200 feet! Bill had some of their spaghetti and pronounced it the best he'd ever had. When I asked the trail chef how many children he had, he said, "I don't know." Hilarious!
The next day brought us trail
art that lifted our spirits. Over the years hikers have marked the important mileages as 1000, 1500 and 2000 on the trail with sticks and rocks. Seeing "2600" meant a lot. Thinking of the old Western movies and TV show I thought that hikers are some of the only people today who can say, "I'll meet you at the Pass," and mean it.
I found myself working on my Northern Terminus speech out loud, musing that long distance hiking can be boring at times.
Bill disagreed. At one point he said, "Have your ever seen a person who wasn't happy on the trail?" I'm always happy, but long hours of trudging can be tedious. Sassafras and Rock Peddler passed us going south. Walking north we ran into 7
ladies heading south from Hart's Pass. When they asked me where the next water was, I said, "You just passed it." One of them said, "I told you so." They turned 180° and followed us to a camp with a spring. After setting up camp they invited us to enjoy appetizers with them. They were all athletic. After raising families and husbands they had continued a yearly tradition of a good multi-day hike together. What a lovely and interesting group of professional women.
Wind in the trees can sound just like a running creek. We needed water at one point and thought we heard
it. When we looked up to see still trees we knew we had found water.
Hart's pass has a guard cabin. Patti (in uniform) and her husband (a retired ranger) staff it. He warned us about filtering our water for at least ten more miles. A herd of horses had been ahead of us and "spoiled" the creeks. We didn't filter any water on the trip except that section. Hart's pass, though it's a dirt road, is the very last road in the United States before the Canadian border. I don't know exactly why it felt monumental to me, but it did.
I got a big congratulatory hug from Bill before Rock Pass in the "
Alpine Meadows". He was bursting with happiness. He has credited me for starting him on this addicting adventure, but I credit him for turning me into an experienced hiker.
A through-hiker at Rock Pass said to me, "Do you know the bus schedule at Manning Park?" Random trail talk. We ran into some dead trees past Rock Pass and at the Northern Terminus. It appears to be the
Bark Beetle that has ravished our forests in the southwest. A sad sight. After Rock Pass you go way down and have a tough climb up to Woody Pass. I mistakenly called it Windy Pass in this
video. You'll see why when you watch. Those mountains are almost directly west from the trail and are stunning. I met a guy from Switzerland, whose name I think was
G, who appeared to be very clean. He said, "That's because my pants are the color of dirt!" Bill speculated, "These mountains must be like they are in Switzerland." G replied, "Yes, you'll see them for a few days like this when walking in my country. Here it goes on for weeks." There were lot's of twists and turns on the trail today, big ups and downs, a steep and narrow corkscrew trail with plenty of big drops and slippery gravel. We moved slowly and carefully. Our last night on the trail we camped at Hopkins's Lake. We filtered water from the lake with CC, 2% and Breeze.
August 22. We had about 6 miles to go that last day. It rained lightly up to the terminus and then stopped. I put on my rain jacket for only the second time in 2650 miles and used my umbrella for the first time. Two Pack passed us, literally carrying two backpacks, front and back! Very interesting guy. We spent some time with him later in Manning Park over dinner.
It felt good to come into the Terminus. I was excited to be finishing. A lady ran up to us, showing a picture on her phone and asked if we'd seen her husband on the trail. We had, and 30 minutes later she surprised him when he arrived. The same thing happened with the parents and sister of another hiker. They'd all hiked in the previous day to meet their families. That's a big commitment. It's nine miles of trail from Manning Park. We had been looking at pictures of the monument for years but nothing clears things up like being there. I've said for years, "You never know until you go." All the planning never completely prepares you for the ground truth. The Terminus is in a valley completely in the wilderness. There are no border stations, patrols or roads. We had all our papers authorizing us to cross into Canada and no one to check them. The monument matches the recently renovated one at the southern terminus which faces east. There's a narrow swath of ground cut from the trees going east and west from the Terminus up both mountain sides. I found out later that
the entire length of the US-Canada border is marked by a 20-foot-wide slash through the trees.
I made a final
video statement that I'd been working on for days. Please watch
it and turn up the volume. I was able to sum up all of my feelings about finishing the trail. We met Saint Harbor, a 24 year old, who said he'd completed the trail in 91 days. He was concerned about funding the hike. I asked him how he saved money, and he said, "hike fast" which makes sense. Bill broke out a mini celebratory Tequila. We shared it with Saint Harbor and he said, "Shall I waterfall it?" He meant, "Shall I pour it into my mouth without touching my lips to the bottle so we won't share a cold." Love a new amusing phrase.
We hiked the last 9 miles into Manning Park and enjoyed some time with other hikers. My wife had planned to pick us up there the next morning (sensibly not being one to hike 9 miles from Manning Park to the Terminus) but her flight was delayed. Bill and I wound up taking a 3AM Greyhound into Vancouver.
This was a fulfilling end to a grand adventure. I had no bittersweet feelings about it ending, and have not yet thought about future hikes. My final video sums up my feelings. Please watch it and thank you for following along.
See you on the trail,
Dana Law
