Our last section of the trail ran from Stehekin to across the
Canadian border in Manning Park. It feels like a hard and beautiful
dream already from my perch on a camp chair drinking coffee on an Oregon
beach.
Koozie: check. Microbrew: check. Camp chair: check. Oregon coast: check. Hipster life: check check.
Stehekin is a tiny outpost on the far northern end of Lake Chelan that can be reached by walking there or by ferry. Loyal followers of our walks will recall the highlight of the town: the bakery. It's the ancestral home of head-sized cinnamon rolls and sticky buns. Bear claw heaven.
For the prior 2,560 miles Bear Claw had told every hiker we met about the bakery, and its secret: being first on the national park run bus from the trailhead to the bakery. The bus actually runs from the trailhead to town with an obligatory stop at the bakery. It's that good. As chance would have it, three of our favorite people (Big Bear, Chapstick and Toe Touch), all of whom Bear Claw told the secrets to, were on the bus with us. We still got the first seats. We were off first. And got our first choices. It was a stressful moment. Being first also meant we had the least time to think about what to get. Lesson learned: next time, go second.
Between our first and second trips to the bakery we had enough baked goods to last till the end of the trail: cinnamon buns, sticky buns, orange and raspberry twists, pizza slices, molasses and ginger cookies, jalapeño cheddar biscuits, pesto, ricotta and mushroom homemade hot pockets, and a vegetable quiche. Or so I thought. It turns out that I dramatically underestimated how quickly I'd go through the food. Bear Claw somehow, magically shared her third cinnamon bun with me 60/40... if I carried it. No problemo. It was delicious.
What we'd forgotten about Stehekin is that it's spectacular. There are mountains that ring the lake, which is a wonderfully clear blue. It was a gorgeous hot day while we were there. It was pretty enough that we forgot about chores, and sat in Adirondack chairs on the deck of the lodge drinking reisling from the bottle and eating ice cream. Amusingly the deck was 60% hikers at the end of the PCT and 40% tourists. We had lost all sense of decorum at this point, which made the presence of these clean and soft outsiders all the more jarring.
On our way to set up camp we saw something we thought we were long done with: a rattlesnake!! It was just hanging out on the side of a path to the. national park visitor center. PNW, you wily, confusing region. We thought we were hanging out in the rain till Canada, and then you greet us with 90 degree sunshine and rattlesnakes. My oh my. We know nothing.
It was so hot and the water looked so inviting that a group of us went down the dock, stripped down to our underwear and went swimming. Rather in our case we jumped in, swam back as fast as possible, and then wished the wind would stop so we could dry off as quickly as possible in the sun.
We had planned to finish with Toe Touch but she was ahead of her schedule and decided to zero in Stehekin. While we knew we'd meet up in Vancouver that seemed impossibly far away. We had a celebratory / mournful dinner with Toe Touch, Chapstick, Big Bear and some other hikers at the lodge. Thanks to the bee sting I had gotten earlier in the day my leg was twice its normal size, so I got a bag of ice and we went to camp to hang out around a picnic table (!!). Seats = amazing innovation.
The next morning we got up and after it. The bears were on the same schedule. We saw a nice little family of three from the Stehekin bus, where Bear Claw had seen her only bears of the trail two years earlier. They must have heard she was back.
Summer was in full force all day up and down nondescript, overgrown hills to Rainy Pass, the site of the last paved road until Manning Park in Canada. We camped near the road, and in the middle of the night my food bag fell from its mouse hang. The factory-created knot came undone from the weight of too many baked goods.
On the bulletin board at Rainy Pass a good Samaritan had left a note about a hornets nest about a mile up trail. Apparently someone had disturbed the nest and they were now on the war path stinging everyone. We had decided to camp at Rainy Pass partially in the hope that they would calm down by morning.
Hikers had left notes on the trail marking the spot where the hornets were. By the time we saw the notes, the hornets came in hot. Feeling one on her leg, Bear Claw lost her composure and dropped her hiking pole. So much for leadership. The hornets saw weakness and came in for the kill. I got stung three times within a few milliseconds. You might say that someone dropped the proverbial ball. If you thought: "I wonder if they AAR'ed that?" The answer is "uh, hell yeah."
Luckily the scenery took a rapid turn for the epic as we pushed past the hornets nest in the forest and up to Cutthroat Pass. Side note: the names of the passes around here are hilariously evocative of the area: Granite, Windy, Foggy, Rock, Woody, Glacier, and Castle. The trail is up above the tree line for much of the section, cutting switchbacks in steep mountains, hanging out on ridge lines and generally letting us savor #ridgelife. #ridgelife is life above tree line, on ridges. It's life out of the muddy forest where you hang out with mountains. It's the best of life. We found a campsite on an epic ridge after only 23 miles. We stopped. We had to. It was our second to last night on the trail. #ridgeliving
Epic post-bee sting hang
The desert returns... in northern Washington
50 miles left!
Heading up to #ridgelife
Still going
View from #ridgelife
The hiking continued to be spectacular as we walked north. The weather however had a mind of its own. As we approached Woody Pass the clouds were blowing in. We spent our last night on trail camped on top of Woody Pass, in a ditch, because we didn't want to hike 4 more miles and refused to backtrack. Ah the PCT. Bear Claw crushed the mac and cheese, and we got real cozy as the storm blew in.
Sunrise hiking
Sun rising over Washington
Ridgeliving
A stop on the ridge
A view down into a valley
Lunch with a view
Fall is here
Alpine meadow
Last push towards woody pass. Clouds are coming in
We woke up the next morning to the crash of rocks across a small gulley. Rockslide! It was time to go. The PCT had a sense of humor. For our last day we walked in clouds and rain. There was overgrown trail in the woods, blow downs, and some sketchy, washed out trail. We were done with #ridgeliving and ready for Canada.
Hikers made numbers from rocks to count down the last five miles to the border. We alternated skipping, hiking and running the whole way. It's remarkable how strong we were.
Big Bear and Chapstick clapped us in as we arrived in the small clearing in the woods where Monument 78 lives. A tucked away ending point for our journey. The border itself was clear cut of trees for ten feet or so, but otherwise we were truly in the middle of nowhere, still 9 miles from Manning Park in Canada. The rain did not let up for us. We toasted our finish, took some quick photos, and started the last few miles to town.
Between April 23 to September 17, we hiked 2,650 miles and got married in front of our family and friends. We spent the whole time 3 feet from each other, which is still remarkable to both of us.
It felt like forever to get from the Monument to manning park. Two thousand feet of climbing after finishing the trail technically, come on!!
Watch out for Bear Claw
Manning Park itself was overflowing with people, not just hikers. We quickly bought bus tickets to Vancouver before they sold out, and then had a late lunch at the pub. A poor couple was getting married there, it was a Saturday after all, and hikers had to scramble to move all our things when they decided to take pictures in the lobby. The hotel gave us use of a conference room to get us out of the way. It was a gift because the bus wouldn't pick us up until 1:50am. We unfurled our sleeping pads and bags and laid down to nap.
We arrived at the Vancouver bus station too quickly. It was still dark at 5am, hikers dispersed into civilization, and we stood in a daze. We couldn't quite believe we had done it, that it was over, and that we were in a city.
We couldn't just pitch our tent anywhere or use the bathroom wherever we wanted. We sat in the station using free wifi, and eventually made our way to a hipster coffee shop when it opened. Already the delicacies couldn't quite match the satisfaction they'd have given us just 24 hours earlier. We were starting a new journey.
Vancouver bus station at 5am
Kicking it in the station
Pho!
They put covers on our jackets at dim sum... embarrassing ourselves
But can keep this guy from his spicy dumplings
She found the Cheesecake Factory
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Koozie: check. Microbrew: check. Camp chair: check. Oregon coast: check. Hipster life: check check.
Stehekin is a tiny outpost on the far northern end of Lake Chelan that can be reached by walking there or by ferry. Loyal followers of our walks will recall the highlight of the town: the bakery. It's the ancestral home of head-sized cinnamon rolls and sticky buns. Bear claw heaven.
For the prior 2,560 miles Bear Claw had told every hiker we met about the bakery, and its secret: being first on the national park run bus from the trailhead to the bakery. The bus actually runs from the trailhead to town with an obligatory stop at the bakery. It's that good. As chance would have it, three of our favorite people (Big Bear, Chapstick and Toe Touch), all of whom Bear Claw told the secrets to, were on the bus with us. We still got the first seats. We were off first. And got our first choices. It was a stressful moment. Being first also meant we had the least time to think about what to get. Lesson learned: next time, go second.
Between our first and second trips to the bakery we had enough baked goods to last till the end of the trail: cinnamon buns, sticky buns, orange and raspberry twists, pizza slices, molasses and ginger cookies, jalapeño cheddar biscuits, pesto, ricotta and mushroom homemade hot pockets, and a vegetable quiche. Or so I thought. It turns out that I dramatically underestimated how quickly I'd go through the food. Bear Claw somehow, magically shared her third cinnamon bun with me 60/40... if I carried it. No problemo. It was delicious.
What we'd forgotten about Stehekin is that it's spectacular. There are mountains that ring the lake, which is a wonderfully clear blue. It was a gorgeous hot day while we were there. It was pretty enough that we forgot about chores, and sat in Adirondack chairs on the deck of the lodge drinking reisling from the bottle and eating ice cream. Amusingly the deck was 60% hikers at the end of the PCT and 40% tourists. We had lost all sense of decorum at this point, which made the presence of these clean and soft outsiders all the more jarring.
On our way to set up camp we saw something we thought we were long done with: a rattlesnake!! It was just hanging out on the side of a path to the. national park visitor center. PNW, you wily, confusing region. We thought we were hanging out in the rain till Canada, and then you greet us with 90 degree sunshine and rattlesnakes. My oh my. We know nothing.
It was so hot and the water looked so inviting that a group of us went down the dock, stripped down to our underwear and went swimming. Rather in our case we jumped in, swam back as fast as possible, and then wished the wind would stop so we could dry off as quickly as possible in the sun.
We had planned to finish with Toe Touch but she was ahead of her schedule and decided to zero in Stehekin. While we knew we'd meet up in Vancouver that seemed impossibly far away. We had a celebratory / mournful dinner with Toe Touch, Chapstick, Big Bear and some other hikers at the lodge. Thanks to the bee sting I had gotten earlier in the day my leg was twice its normal size, so I got a bag of ice and we went to camp to hang out around a picnic table (!!). Seats = amazing innovation.
The next morning we got up and after it. The bears were on the same schedule. We saw a nice little family of three from the Stehekin bus, where Bear Claw had seen her only bears of the trail two years earlier. They must have heard she was back.
Summer was in full force all day up and down nondescript, overgrown hills to Rainy Pass, the site of the last paved road until Manning Park in Canada. We camped near the road, and in the middle of the night my food bag fell from its mouse hang. The factory-created knot came undone from the weight of too many baked goods.
On the bulletin board at Rainy Pass a good Samaritan had left a note about a hornets nest about a mile up trail. Apparently someone had disturbed the nest and they were now on the war path stinging everyone. We had decided to camp at Rainy Pass partially in the hope that they would calm down by morning.
Hikers had left notes on the trail marking the spot where the hornets were. By the time we saw the notes, the hornets came in hot. Feeling one on her leg, Bear Claw lost her composure and dropped her hiking pole. So much for leadership. The hornets saw weakness and came in for the kill. I got stung three times within a few milliseconds. You might say that someone dropped the proverbial ball. If you thought: "I wonder if they AAR'ed that?" The answer is "uh, hell yeah."
Luckily the scenery took a rapid turn for the epic as we pushed past the hornets nest in the forest and up to Cutthroat Pass. Side note: the names of the passes around here are hilariously evocative of the area: Granite, Windy, Foggy, Rock, Woody, Glacier, and Castle. The trail is up above the tree line for much of the section, cutting switchbacks in steep mountains, hanging out on ridge lines and generally letting us savor #ridgelife. #ridgelife is life above tree line, on ridges. It's life out of the muddy forest where you hang out with mountains. It's the best of life. We found a campsite on an epic ridge after only 23 miles. We stopped. We had to. It was our second to last night on the trail. #ridgeliving
Epic post-bee sting hang
The desert returns... in northern Washington
50 miles left!
Heading up to #ridgelife
Still going
View from #ridgelife
The hiking continued to be spectacular as we walked north. The weather however had a mind of its own. As we approached Woody Pass the clouds were blowing in. We spent our last night on trail camped on top of Woody Pass, in a ditch, because we didn't want to hike 4 more miles and refused to backtrack. Ah the PCT. Bear Claw crushed the mac and cheese, and we got real cozy as the storm blew in.
Sunrise hiking
Sun rising over Washington
Ridgeliving
A stop on the ridge
A view down into a valley
Lunch with a view
Fall is here
Alpine meadow
Last push towards woody pass. Clouds are coming in
We woke up the next morning to the crash of rocks across a small gulley. Rockslide! It was time to go. The PCT had a sense of humor. For our last day we walked in clouds and rain. There was overgrown trail in the woods, blow downs, and some sketchy, washed out trail. We were done with #ridgeliving and ready for Canada.
Hikers made numbers from rocks to count down the last five miles to the border. We alternated skipping, hiking and running the whole way. It's remarkable how strong we were.
Big Bear and Chapstick clapped us in as we arrived in the small clearing in the woods where Monument 78 lives. A tucked away ending point for our journey. The border itself was clear cut of trees for ten feet or so, but otherwise we were truly in the middle of nowhere, still 9 miles from Manning Park in Canada. The rain did not let up for us. We toasted our finish, took some quick photos, and started the last few miles to town.
Between April 23 to September 17, we hiked 2,650 miles and got married in front of our family and friends. We spent the whole time 3 feet from each other, which is still remarkable to both of us.
It felt like forever to get from the Monument to manning park. Two thousand feet of climbing after finishing the trail technically, come on!!
Watch out for Bear Claw
Manning Park itself was overflowing with people, not just hikers. We quickly bought bus tickets to Vancouver before they sold out, and then had a late lunch at the pub. A poor couple was getting married there, it was a Saturday after all, and hikers had to scramble to move all our things when they decided to take pictures in the lobby. The hotel gave us use of a conference room to get us out of the way. It was a gift because the bus wouldn't pick us up until 1:50am. We unfurled our sleeping pads and bags and laid down to nap.
We arrived at the Vancouver bus station too quickly. It was still dark at 5am, hikers dispersed into civilization, and we stood in a daze. We couldn't quite believe we had done it, that it was over, and that we were in a city.
We couldn't just pitch our tent anywhere or use the bathroom wherever we wanted. We sat in the station using free wifi, and eventually made our way to a hipster coffee shop when it opened. Already the delicacies couldn't quite match the satisfaction they'd have given us just 24 hours earlier. We were starting a new journey.
Vancouver bus station at 5am
Kicking it in the station
Pho!
They put covers on our jackets at dim sum... embarrassing ourselves
But can keep this guy from his spicy dumplings
She found the Cheesecake Factory
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Congrats on your epic journey!!! What an amazing way to start your life together. :) - Michelle Rajotte
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