thehikingnerd

[thehikingnerd]

Day 152. (10/19)

After what felt like a quick nap, I woke up to the sound of my alarm going off after a short 4-hours of sleep.  My head was still groggy and felt heavy, I had in no way gotten enough sleep for the day ahead of me.  I quickly packed up and started walking anyway, after just a snack and some cold instant coffee.  After popping over a ridge line, in the twilight I could see that I was closer to Shasta than I thought I was.  The sky started to grow red and orange behind the clouds that clung to the top of Mt. Shasta in two separate layers with tails extending to the right. I'm not sure what truth there is to that old sailors' saying... but if red in the morning meant for "sailors to take warning", I was wondering if I too should be concerned at this omen.  This wasn't my first rodeo and I knew a big storm was coming.  It was cool and breezy, which was helping me to stay moving.  The red bled onto more and more clouds. The sky slowly began to light up and eventually I found myself alone, high up on a mountain and with an incredible view of the valleys below in contrast with the high, thin clouds bright pink against a light blue sky.  It might sound silly, but I remember thinking the colors were like those you see in cotton candy... and the clouds themselves were just as thin and wispy and soft, like you could just breath on them and they would melt away.  The way these clouds and the rising sun softly lit the scene, left the smoothly rolling hills around me feeling calm and peaceful. Soon the red sun itself popped over the ridge and the ambiance quickly changed... a golden light flooded the hillsides at a nearly horizontal angle. Long, thin shadows stretched away from the still, near-glowing trees.  It was really one of those Robert Frost moments; one of those golden moments when you actively try to soak in all of it you can because you know its fleeting and ever-changing and will soon disappear forever.  I was here seeing this alone. No one else was sharing my view or knew its beauty.  It was this sight that then made me turn introspective. It made me realize that my time on the PCT was quickly coming to a close. I began to tear up before the full weight of this realization even hit me. This trail, I'm not kidding when I say it felt like it was going to last forever, just day after day, walking for thousands of miles, and being concerned about such real yet simple needs, so constant and ever-flowing... was now about to be finished forever. It was a profound feeling.  It felt as though I had lived an entire lifetime out here, complete with all of the developmental stages and changes that you would expect from an actual life.  My body was thin and my thoughts reflective, I was tired... I was ready for it end, but also didn't want to let go at the same time.  I imagine this must be what it feels like after a long life has left you old and worn-out, but so full of fond memories and attachments that you don't want to separate from them.  It was an unforgettable experience, one that only lasted 2-3 minutes, but I felt forever changed by it and had trouble pulling myself back to the realities at hand. I slowly continued, staggering down the trail still processing everything, and slowly I began to refocus my thoughts on the sizable task at hand. I still needed to have a 37-mile day to out run the very storm that had created this amazing morning experience... or there would be real consequences that I did not want to endure.  In what seemed like no time at all, an ominous cloud cover had rolled in and the day was dim and gray. It was a long hard day and I had to push myself to a limit I've never approached before.  The ups and downs, step after step, stopping as little as possible for breaks as I passed by patchy snow and karst, rocky outcroppings, fearful that at anytime the storm could take off and leave me in a bad situation. By early afternoon I had made my way down from the higher elevations and was now even seeing maples in their fall yellows.  I saw a dry, rocky stream bed in which every stone was white in color. It looked so clean. It lay in such stark contrast to the surrounding rocks and trees that it reminded me of a Japanese garden in that it was almost more like it was this man made creation meant to merely leave you with the impression of a white water stream cascading down. It was pretty remarkable, but I did not linger here long.  My steps were getting sloppy and my whole body was in pain.  I kept going downhill at this point and was thankful this town was in a valley.  I was stumbling and tripping over rocks, and my head was starting to feel foggy.  I felt like I was becoming delirious.  I had stopped to at some point to try and message the trail angel once it was apparent that I would likely make it down in time and hoped that he would be willing to pick me up and let me recover in his home for a while.  Just before I made it down to the valley floor, I passed by mile marker 1500 (yes, I had just passed 1600 two and half days prior) and got a response from the trail angel!! He was willing to meet me a railroad crossing and pick me up in his car and let me stay at his place. Salvation was at hand.  That didn't make that last mile and the short walk to the train track any easier though. Luckily, it wasn't long before I was in the car and telling Jeff about my mad dash to outrun the storm.  He was a very cool guy and had a fun place.  It was complete with a fire place and even a vinyl collection.  The guy had the same John Harper record I had listened to from back in the day among so many others. He also has a couple of massive bulldogs that were definitely cool and nice dogs, but so big and powerful that they were at times a little intimidating.  Also, to my surprise, Naomi, the hiker who had given me Jeff's information, was also here ahead of me somehow. I took a shower and rested as my clothes washed.  I finally got up the will to go order a pizza and brought it back to eat in front of the fireplace.  It was surprisingly chilly out, and I was looking out his garage door just when it hit.  All at once, it just pouring with the heaviest rain I'd seen in over a year.  I almost couldn’t believe I was in California witnessing it.  I told Jeff how happy I was to have out ran this storm even if it nearly killed me to do so, and that right now I still had friends up there. I was legitimately worried about them after seeing how heavily it was coming down.  It looked vengeful outside.  I was needing to think about my end game in a real way since I was now only 80 some odd miles from Burney and the end of my long journey. I looked up a plane ticket and begrudging bought it after seeing it raise in price from earlier in the day.  What other choice did I have? It felt good to have that taken care of but also gave me a timeline that I now had to keep.  Jeff had some friends of his come over and they cooked some tuna steaks. He shared some with me and it was fantastic.  Spent the rest of the evening just relaxing, feeling cozy and full, had a couple of beers and crashed atop my sleeping pad on the living room floor.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 151. (10/18)

I woke up  around sunrise and mentally prepared myself for the day ahead.  I had slept pretty well and was starting to run low on food; both factors are helpful for making good time.  I tried to keep a strong pace all morning and didn't take many breaks or photos along the way. By 10:30 am or so, I had Mt. Shasta come into view and to my surprise it didn't have much snow on it at all, basically just some left in the crevices.  It was so different than last time I had seen it back in August when it was completely white.  There were a few view points where I saw some cascading rocky hillsides with a couple of lakes that looked pretty interesting along the way.  I snacked along the way and ate lunch quickly as to not delay. It was hard going and I just kept pushing with all that I had.  It is amazing though when you have a prominent landmark like Shasta and get to close in on it throughout such a fast-paced, big-mile day. I was already tired before the sun went down and had already surpassed 30 miles, but knew that I'd be even more sore and tired tomorrow and that it was best to cover as much ground as I could before sleeping.  I was reminded of Dixie and Perk doing their 24-hour challenge.  At that time, I wanted no part of it because of the unnecessary amount of strain and suffering it would mean just to see how far you could make it with little more to gain than a longer rest after it was done and bragging rights... but here I was doing something very similar and surprisingly, despite being months later, in nearly the same place, LOL. But I had real world motivation to help keep me going.  If they had given up on their challenge, it would have just been over... for me, freezing snow and winds were my punishment if I failed.  So I hiked on into the night finally stopping at a tiny trickle of water that cross the trail.  I was beat.  It was 12:40 am and I needed to rest.  Because I was so tired and it was kind of a steep, rocky part of the trail...  I just pitched mt tent right in the middle of the narrow trail on a hillside in a fairly flat spot.  I figured I'd only be able to sleep a few hours if I was going to make it down past Shasta and into Dunsmuir in time. So I ate and crashed out hard after a personal record that I don't ever see myself surpassing in this lifetime: 42 miles in one day!

[thehikingnerd]

Day 150. (10/17)

We both woke up around 7am, before the sun rose, to get an early start and try to catch up to the others so as to not make them have to wait on us.  We hiked for about 4 hours and passed by some pretty views before we came to what should have been a 1600-mile marker for the PCT.  Not finding one already established, I made my own small one, and after a few pics was on my way.  Jedi and I popped over a high turn in the trail, there was the road with Cosmos and Larry sitting down on the far side waiting.  They hadn't been there long and has just started to have some snacks when we crossed over the road to join them.  We snacked and hung out at the roadside for a while with no cars passing by.  We talked it over... They all needed to resupply Etna while I had just enough provisions to make it two more days to Dunsmuir. After some final hesitations to leave a good group of new friends, I wished them well and hoped that they could get a hitch soon.  I turned and took off after saying good-bye knowing that would likely be the last interaction I would have with other thru-hikers for the remainder of the trail.  I was sad to be leaving the group, but I had to do what I had to do. I knew I had something crazy like close to 100 miles to do in 2.5 days to get to Dunsmuir and beat this storm.  The worst part is that if I failed to make good enough time, I ran the risk of being at one of the highest and worst spots near Mt. Shasta to be caught in the storm when it finally came. With all of this sinking in, I was highly motivated to cover some ground quickly. At one point as I stopped for water I noticed that what few broad-leaved trees there in the area had started to turn and that fall was coming to northern California. I got to a high point and figured I should take advantage of the good reception to message Jedi to ask her for the trail angel's information (since I had forgotten to get it earlier) and to see if they ever got a ride into Etna. About an hour later I got a response saying they had to walk like a mile down that road toward the town before they were able to get a hitch, and she also gave me the precious info I needed regarding the trail angel for when I finished up about two days from now. There was an orange, rosy hue as the sun lowered that evening through smoky air and set behind the next ridge line. I walked a little into the night but not very far before setting up camp.  I knew I had a couple of my biggest days on trail ahead of me and wanted to get a good long sleep in to start off on the right foot.  

[thehikingnerd]

Day 149. (10/16)

The crew all woke up and individually we packed and ate and one by one got ready to go. We continued as a group more or less.  We soon topped out where we could see for a good distance, and the view was of smoke-filled valleys with what seemed like floating mountain tops just peaking out from the smoke.  The trail also lead us through more very freshly burned areas; some fresh enough that you could smell the charred, blackened bark of the trees. One day they would be bare wood bleached silver by the sun, like so many others I’d seen along the trail in California and still standing for a long time after they died. I wondered if any of them would recover, and how all these annual fires will affect the future of the trail. The dirt was also bare in many places void of any underbrush. Eventually, I found a green pine-cone laying on the trail and had talked with my friends about how a trail angel told me about how she used to gather pine nuts from the big burnt and now dead pine when Dixie and I had stopped by months back. I was kind of curious and I usually only saw pine cones after the were open the nuts were already gone... so eventually I broke it open and tried one (with Jedi telling me that it shouldn't be harmful) and it was pretty awful, LOL. I also on one stretch noticed that many of the fine branches of some of the burn pines had fallen along the trail and hadn't burnt away. Most of them had instead curled from the dry heat of the fires, and after a little looking I managed to find one that had curled into a near-perfect circle.  It was pretty cool and I really wanted to keep it as a souvenir, but i had no way to really keep it intact had I decided not to try and keep it, so I just left it there after a couple of pics and went on.  By later in the day the crowd had split up and been spaced out.  Jedi was ahead of me as the day was getting later and the other two were likely ahead of her an unknown distance when I came upon a couple of people camping not far from a lake.  After talking to them I was told that one of them had had a stand down with a mountain lion earlier in the stretch that I was just heading into.  The lady said that she had spoken to Jedi who had already gone before me and warned her and also had passed on to her the name and phone number of a cool trail angel in Dunsmuir.  I told her that I could get the info from Jedi and she said to just tell the trail angel that I was a friend of hers, Naomi was her name. I was pretty happy to be given this info as I was trying to avoid getting a hotel room by myself as it was looking like I might be splitting off from the group and continuing on my own rather than joining them for a night in Etna.  The biggest reason for this was that it was looking like a storm was going to be moving in.  I couldn't mentally handle another snow storm so I figured if I pushed and pushed harder than I have the entire trail that I just might be able to outrun this storm.  It was going to be cutting it close and I would have to do crazy miles, but it was possible and no amount of distance seemed worse to me than another snow storm night.  I hadn't mapped it out just yet and still wasn't for sure, but I didn't want to spend multiple days in Etna waiting when I was this close. I would have had to wait like 2-3 days and even then would still have to hike a couple of days through virgin snow.  None of my options were very appealing at this point.  But, again, I was happy there might be a trail angel waiting if I was able to beat the storm.  So, I thanked her and continued down the trail.  It was getting later and I stopped to refill my water.  I decided I had better get enough for dinner and breakfast and go ahead and pick up the pace to try and catch Jedi. I was cruising along at a good 3 miles per hour or more and just as we were losing light I spotted her up ahead and saw that she herself was going a brisk pace and was listening to earbuds... about this time I couldn't help myself when the idea popped into my head, lol. I knew she wouldn't hear me coming up behind her and that she had just been told about an aggressive mountain lion in the area... so I just waited until i was about 8 feet behind her before loudly saying "Hey! There you are!" As expected she nearly jumped out of her skin, lol.  After that we put on headlamps and hiked a little bit further until we found a high flat camping space without too many rocks, or at least they had been cleared out from the space so as to comfortably set up camp.  We were tired and both decided to just cowboy camp.  As time had gone on and we had all gotten more comfortable with sleeping outside, many hikers tended to cowboy more and more if it the weather was going to permit it. It was another long day and I went to sleep pretty quickly after dinner with an unobstructed view of the night sky.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 148. (10/15)

I had a decent nights sleep, but seems we all had the same idea to get up early. We were all packed and on trail before the sun came up and as we prepared I got their names Jedi, Cosmos, and Larry. We talked and got to know one another a little as we descended downward toward Seiad Valley. As it turns out, they had all flipped up to the border half way through their NOBO hike and were working their way SOBO now and would finish up in Dunsmuir at mile 1501. I told them how I had been NOBO the whole way but had to come back and get this 300 mile section that I skipped to see Angie.  (At some later point, it occurred to me that I had actually passed this group in southern Washington just south of Goat Rocks and actually remembered Butt'rs talking to Jedi briefly in passing. It's wild how paths intersect out here.) The sunrise was beautiful as we descended toward to river valley, and it wasn't long before we found ourselves walking along the roadside into the tiny "town". We immediately went into the Seiad Cafe where we all got a table together and got to enjoy a real breakfast with coffee. The food was good and it was fun talking with my new found friends and exchanging trail stories, how we got our trail names, etc. After breakfast there was a odd little store next to the cafe in the same building (this whole stop/town was basically this one building, including the post office) and we went in to resupply.  The choices weren't great, but I didn't need much and I would be getting to another resupply spot pretty soon anyway.  They were all going into to Etna for a resupply and as appealing as it was, I was still thinking about pushing on further and figured I could make it to the next town after that if I bought just a few extra things. But I didn't have to decide just yet. We all got what we needed and started off down the road again. We passed over a bridge then found ourselves walking back toward the town along the opposite side of the bank to get back to where the PCT continued. Along this walk and in chatting to Jedi, I learned that she was more obsessed with plants then I was and was even an actual botanist.  I learned a few new things from her that were pretty interesting and liked her idea for only allowing bees access to this one type of flower (I forgot its name now) but that it should result in naturally blue honey.  It was really fun to talk with another plant nerd to make the miles pass a little easier, and I was even thoroughly out-nerded.  Eventually we got to a turn around looking area and we stopped for a light, quick lunch. [I seem to remember that there was either a sign saying the trail was closed but it wasn't clear and didn't look like an official PCT sign, or maybe a guy told us it was closed in passing, I can’t remember exactly now. Either way, we all agree that if the trail wasn’t obviously marked as closed we were determined to keep going as planned.] After a pretty reasonable day, eventually stopped on an ascent where it looked like an old forestry road was and there was a considerably large, flat, gravel area to camp.  I figured I should set up quite a ways off since I can snore sometimes, but also just because it was odd to have this much open space, so why not?  After dinner Jedi and I decided to make a fire since we were in a gravely rock surface and neither of us had had one in a long time.  We got one going but ended up only enjoying it for a short time before heading to bed.  Even if you want to enjoy something like a campfire, you're usually so tired and want to get started so early that you just never end up having them very often unless its pretty cold and dry and several people working together to make it happen.  It was nice, even if short lived.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 147.  (10/14)

I was surprisingly cold much of the night considering I was inside of a shelter. There was a draft that would blow through the door pretty constantly, or maybe it was cold because of the spirits in the place, lol, I don't know. But I did get some sleep and was grateful for the water cache someone was kind enough to have set up inside. I was quick to pack up and be on my way. I was still looking to do big, big miles over the next week or so and just destroy this last section.  I was tired of the cold and my body always hurting.  All I could think about was sleeping in a cozy bed and being lazy for a couple of weeks and eating real food every meal and spending time with Angie again.  You could see smoke from fires off in the distance and it always added an element of uncertainty... and all the more reason to haul ass and get this done. One shift in the fire and this last part of the trail I skipped could close right down and end my PCT for me in a very disappointing way. I wanted to end it with something and at least Burney Falls seemed like a nice place to see right at the end.  I was making good time and it wasn't long before I started into some pretty freshly burned areas.  Most of the trees were still standing, but they had scorched bark and it looked like most were dead or would be soon. Hopefully some were able to survive, but there was nothing left behind on the ground at all: just dry soft dirt mixed with fine ash.  It was interesting to hike through, but sad to see all the same. I could now see why the firefighter who dropped me off was surprised that the trail was actually open.  I was in and out of various levels of burnt and untouched areas as the day went on and as the day was winding down I saw the first actual flames of a small fire out ahead in the direction I was heading, but it was over on the other ridge. As the sun set I kept hiking to try and get in some extra miles and as I started down my final decent of the night you could see it with increasing clarity as it got darker. I was getting closer as I descended and it was troubling to see a fire so close even if it was pretty small (a few acres maybe) and didn't seem to be spreading any.  I had seen a good spot to camp on my Guthook App and was trying to hurry up and make it there.  It seemed like the best place to camp for the night and would put my mileage where it needed to be for the day.  Very much to my happy surprise, when I arrived there were a 2-3 tents set up.  I rolled into the camp and everyone was already in their tents and bedding down for the night, but they poked out their heads and greeted me after hearing me roll up.  This group was equally surprised to meet another thru-hiker on this particular stretch at this late of a time in the season... AND they were also headed SOBO!  The prospects of some trail friends for the next week was pretty exciting. It was fun to chat a bit, but they were ready for bed and I needed to set up and have my dinner.  After all we were all on the home stretch and wanted to get an early start the next morning and have a real breakfast in the small town below.  There wasn't a ton of space left in the site, but I managed to squeeze in next to a big log and wind down for the evening.  

[thehikingnerd]

Day 146 (10/13)

Around 6 in the morning I woke up, we all had a simple breakfast and some coffee and before I knew it I was piling into the firefighter's truck with my pack. He drove me quite a while and he sounded confident he knew where I was talking about. I hoped so because all I had was the mile I got off trail where it crossed a road and a memory of a concrete road barrier.  I was excited to see a wildcat cross the road in front of us just before we pulled off the winding road. Much to my relief, it was the exact right spot I was talking about.  Relieved to have all of that logistical stuff behind me, I thanked him for all the help and hospitality and he told me to be safe.  It was still very early in the morning, before 8 am and I was back on trail and ready to haul ass! I started down the trail and almost right away caught a view of Mt. Shasta looming in the distance.  Its exactly where I was headed and I hoped to make great time in getting there. The town of Ashland yesterday had been pretty warm, too warm in fact, now as I was gaining in elevation, I couldn't believe how quickly it got cold. I passed by mile marker 1700 and took a selfie. Rays of light occasionally broke through the cloud cover and shone through the ice coated trees and it was beautiful.  The ice was dripping/raining off the trees in the wind and rays of sunlight.  It was hard to tell if it was little patches of thick steam coming from the mountain sides or smoke from fire off in the distance. I took some pictures but it was really hard to catch how magical this atmosphere was on camera. Then, just like that, by around 5:30pm I crossed the border and back into Northern California. My god, California is a big state.  I had at this point completed every step of Washington and Oregon and still couldn't believe how much faster those who states were combined than California.  I only end up going a few miles into California before I come upon an old shack.  Its getting cold and late and I'm hopeful I will be able to cut my day a little short and maybe save myself the effort of setting up camp and perhaps staying in this shelter for the night.  Shelters are few and far between on the PCT and I wished I had timed out parts of my hike better to stay some of the colder nights in shelters, so this was a welcomed sight.  As I approach the shack, I see a laminated sign posted on the front by the door. This is also the point where things start to get a little creepy as I read the sign... it is telling about the history of this shack. The first line talks about how settlers had been killed by native peoples on this property in 1855.  About this time it occurs to me that its actually Friday the 13th and I'm here alone at some old cabin that's likely haunted and I'm here on a cold night all by myself.  Hmm... this is going to be interesting.  The good news is that it does seem that I'm allowed to stay the night and I have enough daylight to cook dinner and get settled in without rushing.  It was cold as hell, and although i wasn't supposed to cook inside as the rule posted, I couldn't help it and was just very careful, besides, the canisters are much safer than an alcohol stove for example and I have to assume that's what they are actually afraid of.  Anyway, there were lots of camping chair set up inside, a tarp that looked good for cowboy camping on top of, and even jugs of water and a few small food items. There was a creepy attic area, but i just tried to ignore its existence.  I cooked and ate dinner and got myself ready for bed.  I was grateful to the shelter, but it was still cold AF.  I really was done with the cold in Washington and couldn't believe it was this cold in Northern California.  I did my rest to stay warm, but it was rough trying to fall asleep and stay asleep.

[thehikingnerd]

Traveling back to Ashland for my last leg (10/10 - 10/12)

It was a rushed haze through which we woke up, gathered our things, and loaded onto the bus, I honestly barely remember it, lol. But we made the bus and were one our way. It was about a 2 hour ride into Vancouver and we were dropped off at a huge bus station. We booked a bus to take us to Seattle and despite desperately wanting to explore Vancouver a bit, we were exhausted with very little sleep and didn't have enough time before our bus left to actually do anything anyway.  We just came to terms with the idea that we wouldn't be able to see any of Vancouver and just sat in a fast food restaurant that was built in to where we booked out tickets and tried to see if I was able to contact any friends that were living in Seattle and if not start looking at affordable hostel/hotel options in the area.  Before long we were loading onto another bus and heading for the US border.  We had to get off of our bus to go through customs at the border.  It was a pretty relaxed border crossing and despite being told that it was vital I had a form that authorized me to legally cross the boarder (without using a regular port), the guy at the border didn't even ask for it and to not be concerned that there was no stamp indicating that I had even left the US. After that we shuffled back onto the bus and were dropped off in Seattle about 2 hours later. All in All, we had only spent something like 10 hours in Canada, LOL, not even half a day. We walked out of the station and needed to find some food. We were in Chinatown and went to a place with good reviews for some pho. It was good but quite small portions by thru-hiker standards.  With no success in finding a friend to stay with, Butt'rs had found us a very cheap hotel/hostel kind of place to stay the night near the Public Market Center.  It was fairly affordable and nice to have our own room.  We took showers and rested some before heading out to dinner.  It was a weird feeling being in such a large city, we hadn't been anywhere this big and full of people in quite a while.  We did love taking advantage of all the food choices and decided to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant. All the while we both were somewhat distracted making our plans.  I wasn't exactly sure what Butt'rs plans were, he might even stay another day or two in Seattle.  But I was in a mad dash to get this last section done before I lost my motivation and was ready to damn near run this last make-up section.  It was roughly 300 miles that I had skipped and I had hoped that I would be able to do it in 10 days.  I know that might sound crazy, even to me when i first started this trail, but I was pretty sure I could pull it off and be home with a few days to spare before Halloween with Angie and friends.  I might be able to hike crazy distances but I am worn out and beginning to feel down right frail at this point.  Laying down in a soft bed and not getting up for like a week is literally my fantasy. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and I booked my Amtrak ticket for the next day to Klamath Falls, OR. For nearly half a year we had being doing this simple life at a 2 mile per hour pace and it was completely over for Butt'rs now and I was eager to get back for my last 300 miles.  We were in different places for sure, but it is hard to explain how lost you feel when your routine of eat walk sleep is over, you almost don't know how to pass time or what to do next.  We just talked and hung out and then went to sleep.  The next morning ate some free breakfast included with the stay, said our good-byes, and I was off.  I had arranged to have my very first Couchsrufing stay for when I arrived at Klamath Falls.  I have hosted tons of people over the course of like 10 years but its kind of funny that this was the first time I successfully found someone willing to host me and I was pretty thankful.  I boarded the train and had a really beautiful and scenic trip south, I like Amtrak and wished we had more train travel in the US. It was dark when I arrive at around 10:30pm and worried that I was getting in too late for the family that hosted me, but to my surprise they were up and after making a call to confirm a guy named Patrick was on his way to pick me up from the train station.  He brought me to the house where they had a pullout cough ready for me in the living room.  I met Michelle and in no time at all we were all bedding down for the night.  It had all worked out so well and I was so grateful for them helping me out.  The next morning I woke up to a family getting ready for school and their children were very cute and nice, and i loved that they weren't even shy and seemed accustomed to travelers crashing in their living room.  It was nice talking to them and getting to know them and most of all, petting their dogs :) They had given me directions to a local donut shop kind of place within walking distance and I grabbed a breakfast sandwich there before walking to a bus weird bus station.  I had to wait for a while there for the next bus to take me back to Ashland, where I had previously met back up with Dixie, Butt'rs and the crew.  The bus was at least cheap and didn't take very long before I was back in Ashland. The smoke from wild fires was back though and that was again a concern.  Throughout the day I walked around town, did yet another Darn Tough sock exchange, ate food and worked out a stay with a trail angel.  It was a little frustrating working out timing and location to meet up, after lunch I grabbed some Starbucks and waited for her to meet me there.  I got in her SUV and she was super nice.  She drove me to her house that was pretty far out of town actually, but also really nice.  She had pots and plants and fruit trees and horses and a nice house.  We just talked and I help bring in groceries.  She said her husband was a firefighter and expressed some concern to me that the trail might be closed in some sections.  I didn't like the sound of that but she said I'd be able to talk to her husband and he could double check for me later. Last i Heard it was open, and unless it was for sure closed, I was going to go and really didn't want to immediately have to touch my old spot and road walk around from the get -go.  Anyway, it was nice talking to her and it was funny, since its legal now, she said they had grown a bunch a weed on her property this year even though they didn't smoke and there was a huge gallon jar on the mantle full of nugs, lol.  She offered me some and I said thank you but I'm good. LOL.  Eventually her husband came home and the trail angel (forgot name, sadly) had made us dinner.  After dinner and talking to the firefighter husband, who was very skeptical that the trail would be open, actually helped me confirm that it was indeed still open much to his dismay.  With that confirmed, he told me that early in the morning he would take me to the place on the trail where I had rejoined my group two months back.  I couldn't believe how quickly and perfectly all the logistics had worked out, and how cheaply thanks to so many nice people. They gave me a bedroom and I went to sleep early.  

[thehikingnerd]

Day 145 (10/9)

It had been one very cold last night on the trail. I awoke to a frozen water bottle, socks frozen stiff, and shoes that were frozen solid enough that you could tap on the mesh and hear a hollow thud. I made a video as I laid in my tent in the early morning hours about what was going through my head with the end just a few miles away.  It had been such a long and difficult trail to have gotten to this point, and it marked the absolute end for Butt'rs and although it wasn't the ultimate end for me, it was going to be a very different trail after today.  Since we were in no rush, Butt'rs and I took our time getting out of bed, eating, and getting packed up.  Even though we took our time and let it warm up a little before starting off, its never fun putting on frozen gear. I figured it was my last day on trail and I'd just hike in my sleeping socks rather than put those frozen socks back on my feet, but forcing my feet into frozen shoes and thawing them with my own body heat was less than fun. But there we were, all packed up and ready to go.  It was really an introspective moment. This day felt like it would never come. Days out here in the trail can feel like weeks. Today is my 145th day on trail, but with the time dilation you experience, it honestly feels like its been about a year and half at this point. The distance ahead of you seemed so insurmountable that it seemed to stretch out in front of you forever, it really did feel like it was never going to end, and now the end was just over an hour away.  Butt'rs and I talked and both agreed to space ourselves out and to give each other quiet solitude for this last short leg for it to really sink in.  So, he waited for a while while I headed off out in front.  I made some videos and took a few pictures, but mostly was just walked along in near disbelief that I was about to step across into Canada while reflecting on what a journey it had been.  I picked up a couple of rocks in the last mile.  I had been carrying a rock for Angie and one for myself, each of which I picked up in the first mile of the trail, also picked up some lava rock at the mid-point in northern California, and now I would have us each a rock from the finish of the PCT too.  I hope to make a necklace for her out of these rocks and maybe something for myself too as a souvenir from the whole trail. Although in many ways I couldn't wait to see that terminus monument, there was a small part of me that never wanted this to end and its really funny that it seemed like these last 3 miles or so of trail was over in the blink of an eye.  I knew I was getting close so I pulled out my phone and recorded my last stretch as I rounded a corner and the terminus materialized in front of me. Will was already sitting there looking happy and accomplished.  It was all joyous smiles and an odd feeling of disbelief. Apparently he had gotten up pretty early and passed by our camp that morning before we had woken up. I was surprised we didn't hear him. After chatting with him and taking a seat, it wasn't long before Butt'rs came into view holding his Go-pro up and also recording his final moments as he reached the terminus. At this point Butt'rs and I busted out our celebratory libations that we had painstakingly carried since the last resupply in Stehekin. Since they didn't have any hard alcohol (which is what we wanted and would have been much better to carry), I figured I would need at least 2 beers to catch a buzz, but had brought a third because I knew Butt'rs loved beer and wanted to share one with him at the end.  He himself had bought a bottle of wine.  So, I gave Butt'rs his beer, and although I figured it would make for a quicker and lighter (less fun) buzz, I couldn't help it, its seemed so unexpectedly perfect that I had three beers and there were three of us all celebrating at the terminus... so I went on a gave one beer to Will.  Butt'rs also shared some of his wine with me to help with the buzz. It was a really nice hour or two we all hung out there celebrating and reliving moments and just chatting with excitement.  After tons of pictures and what felt like enough time taking in the moment, Will took off and headed into Canada and we soon followed. It was a quick and easy 8 miles into Canada before we arrived at Manning Park.  We walked into the park's general store before heading straight to the restaurant they had there.  We ordered a beer, a burger, and of course the first thing I was going to eat for my first meal in Canada: Poutine!  It was good and we started to figure out all the details after that.  There was a hot tub there that they graciously allowed us to use without charge and Butt'rs and I spent a while just soaking our sore and worn out asses in it while drinking beers and relaxing. We had the whole place to ourselves and it was pretty nice.  We talked over plans.  Initially, I had planned on visiting Vancouver for a few days after the trail just to check it out, but those plans were made before I had taken a week off to visit Angie in Portland. So, I was about 10 days behind schedule and I really really really wanted to be home for Halloween and needed to hurry down to southern Oregon to pick up where I had left off and go SOBO for the rest of the section I had skipped and would end up the trail at Berny, CA.  The waterfall there, I heard, was nice and seemed like a good ending point, at least better than Ashland, OR. But for now, all we knew is that there was a shuttle that left (unfortunately) at 2am and would take us from Manning Park into Vancouver.  We would just have to take that, and then catch a bus that would take us back across the border and into Seattle where I had hoped that I might find some college friends to crash with for a night or two as I made arrangements to get back down to Ashland.  It was a lot of logistics to consider.  But, nevertheless, we enjoyed our evening and went to sleep with our pads laid out on the floor of some basement rec room and sat our alarms so that we wouldn't miss the late night shuttle.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 144 (10/8)

It was a relatively warm and comfortable night, but the wind flapping the plastic and people occasionally trying to stoke the fire (which didn't supply as much warmth as I had hoped for the night) kept me in and out of sleep for much of the night. Eventually, we got up and packed our things. The few things we had hung up to dry also didn't dry out as much as we had hoped, but still, this was all a pretty big win for the last 16 hours or so.  After breakfast and once packed up, Butt'rs and I warmed ourselves around the fire one last time before we reluctantly pealed ourselves away and set out for what we hoped to be our last full day on trail.  Will had beaten us out and was a fast hiker, so we didn't expect to see him until the evening if at all. We immediately felt the bite of the cold as we made our way toward Windy Pass. The snow was exhausting on top of being cold, especially since it kept getting deeper as we went to the higher elevations.  We came to a post where we were required to fill out a "Wilderness Use Permit" saying that we planning on going all the way to the border. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous when it was clear, but clouds loomed all over and we still had intermittent snow, but it was decidedly better than the day before, mainly due to there being a lot less wind. Nevertheless, it was a long cold day and by the end I just had to tell myself soon the suffering would be over and we would have our celebration, but my new shoes and new arched insole combo had been made my toe box a little tight. The pressure on my toes was causing the tendons on the top side of my right big toe to hurt.  It had been gradual since we left Skykomish, but now had become so bad that it was hard to keep going at times. I loosened my laces and just pushed through the pain. To top it off, as we neared the top of the final ascents for the day (Three Fools Peaks I think?), my nose bleed finally came back, with vengeance. It a mess to have a nose bleed out on the trail because you don't want to stop and find TP to plug it, but holding doesn't really seem to work as that's what I tried to do, but at some point of frustration I just let it bleed and drop onto the snow.  Then I realized the Luigi and the other hikers would soon be following us and might find that to be pretty gross, so then I stopped and finally took the time to find some TP and plug it to stop the bleeding.  With that out of the way, I could finally focus more on the beauty around me and the realization that this thing was really coming to and end tomorrow morning (sort of). I still had plans to go back a finish the 300 miles in northern California that I had skipped to visit Angie in Portland for that week in late summer, so it was kind of weird for me: amazing to be making it Canada, but still not really the "end" for me personally.  This made it seem slightly anti-climactic.  It was far more meaningful to Butt'rs as his whole experience was now coming to and very abrupt end.  Those last few miles were absolutely amazing though, and right as we crossed the final peak before  a steady and easy downhill trail to the border, the trail gave Butt'rs one amazing last show of a sunset for his final full day.  We stopped to take pictures and were going slow enough to get cold in the mid-calf-deep snow at the peak and Butt'rs surprisingly was the one who wanted me to hurry and finish taking pics so we could get down of the mountain and to set up camp at a lower elevation.  The snow on the back side was up to knee deep at points. We kept thinking that we were pretty lucky, with the snow already this deep and hard to get through, we figured it wouldn't take much more to close the trail and that we might be some of the last to cross the finish line this season.  We were cold and losing light and trying to hustle down.  Butt'rs was trying to figure out where Will had turned off to set up camp and figured we might go to the same spot but it seemed like he had gone down a pretty steep path off to the right (but we couldn't be sure) and ultimately we decided to follow the trail further before stopping.  We had originally hoped to make it to about a mile before the border before stopping, but we were cold and tired and at about 4 miles out before we found a flat spot under the shelter of a couple of trees that looked like a good spot to call it a night.  It was already dark after all and we were plenty close at that point to easily take our time at the border and still casually walk to Manning Park afterwards. I took a screenshot so I'd know where our final camp was before falling sleep. It was exciting to be so close and it seemed a little harder to fall asleep than usual.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 143 (10/7)

I woke up to damp conditions inside my tent, but Butt'rs again was considerably wet. The only good thing after the cold wet night and plenty of things getting wet was that it wasn't raining when we woke up and packed our things. Also, I had woken up in the middle of the night to a bloody nose at one point, so that was fun. I just hoped that it wouldn't start bleeding again while I was hiking today. We took off and it wasn't long before we bottomed out and began another ascent toward Harts Pass.  If we were fast today we might be able to get close enough to the Canadian border that this could potentially be our last night on the trail.  So we started off strong and it was no time before the going got tough again.  As we ascended the snow started back up and was very steady. Despite the larches still being pretty and the scenery so pretty, it was hard to focus on anything other than being cold. It was starting to be just another miserably cold day and we had already reached our limits on suffering. We were a few miles from Harts Pass when the snow started to drift and get deep in spots. As it turns out, that lady who had mentioned about the guy at Harts Pass making food for hikers was telling the truth.  As we neared Harts Pass there was a gravel parking area with a little offshoot from the trail and a sign pointing for hikers to stop in.  Butt'rs and I were overjoyed to see a large tent shelter with thick plastic sides that had a stove pipe sticking out with smoke coming out. We popped inside and threw down our bags and started meeting everyone inside.  We met a hipster trail-named Luigi, who I remember him saying he wanted to get old-fashioned gear and do another hike in the future (how very hipster lol), his girlfriend (whose name now escapes me) who said her parents would be waiting for them at Manning Park, our friend Will. They were friendly and nice enough to share some things with us. The guy with the tent said he does this every year and we were lucky because he would soon be packing up, we might have been his last hikers he would help with his trail magic since he was going to pack up and leave after another day or so. Within a very short amount of time after seeing a stove with shelter from the snow and cold, and hearing that others were staying the night, Butt'rs and I both looked at each other and quickly agreed to do to same.  We had a short day at around only 10 miles, but this was just too cozy and comfortable to pass up when it was so treacherous outside.  Besides, if we waited until tomorrow, the weather might improve, never know. We spent the rest of the day talking to other hikers and just hanging out around the stove.  I even fixed a real quesadilla with melted cheese and everything on the stove, and was feeling so good and generous I even made one for Butt'rs. We also used this time to come up with a plan for our endgame on the trail.  We knew our last stretch would be rough, but if we pushed hard tomorrow, we could camp somewhere near the border. Then we should be able to wake up early, have a very easy hike to the Northern Terminus monument, chill there for a while to celebrate, and to drink our beers and wine.  We figured we would need this time to reflect and let it all soak in.  Then, we would still have plenty of time to hike the next 8 miles into Manning Park in Canada. That was our plan and it seemed solid.  So after rest and socializing and food, we all rolled out our ground sheets and sleeping pads and settled in for the night.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 142 (10/6).

I woke up hearing one of the guys getting the fire going again. I was impressed that it was so early and he was in shorts with his black lab sniffing around all cute and chubby looking for any food left behind. I said good morning and he asked if I wanted some coffee and I said yes :) I got out and had some breakfast by the fire with coffee. It had been a really cold night and I didn't sleep very well again... and neither did anyone else I found out. The guy told me his poor dog was shivering so much that he had to make space for him on his pad and in his sleeping bag but that neither one of them could seem to stay warm the whole night. Sooo absolutely done with this wet cold. Butt'rs also joined us around the fire and ate breakfast with some coffee. We packed up in increments coming back to the fire every few minutes to heat back up, LAWD, it was cold. Finally, we were all packed and headed out after chatting a bit more and thanking the guys for sharing their coffee and fire. I wanted to drop a D since there was a pit toilet at the campsite, but I thought it would have walls... it did not... and looking at that frosty wooden box, I just said, "nope, I'm just gonna wait until somewhere on trail and dig a hole." It was cold enough that I started hiking with my puffy still on for only the second time all trail, and even so, knowing I'd soon heat up and have to take it off so as not to sweat. There were some pretty clouds in the sky at sunrise, just as it had been before the last rain and snow storm and it was supposed to start raining by that afternoon/evening. We weren't happy about that and hoped it would hold off as long as possible, and then be over quickly. That was our hope even if that never seemed to be how Washington weather worked. It was a pretty morning nevertheless. We came to a parking lot full of cars and stopped to use some freshly cleaned real pit toilets that were pretty nice and talked to the guy cleaning them... he had hiked the PCT a few years back in an easy year with low snow and not a lot of fire closures. We went on and a guy passing by asked if we were thru-hikers and gave us a beef stick and said he wished he had more to give, but it was nice of him and appreciated. We thanked him and he told us the larches ahead were bright in their fall yellows. So we kept climbing and saw quite a few people and chatted with them here and there. One lady told us there was a guy cooking burgers for hikers as trail magic at Harts Pass. It sounded enticing, but I wasn't sure if she knew what she was talking about, especially with us being so late in the season at this point. We kept climbing and the view just kept getting better and better. There were yellow larches everywhere, and the clouds building but rolling in patchy and it was very pretty. Yellow larches, red huckleberry bushes, blue sky, clouds... all just beautiful. By the time we got to the top it was just amazing views in all directions but it was also finally getting cold and it did indeed look like another storm was coming. And for that reason we chilled on top for just a few minutes before heading on. We would drop down just a little before climbing right back up to a pass. We figured if we could get down the other side of the pass before the rain and snow hit, we might be able to set up camp at a low elevation just before the rain started to be as dry as possible for the next day. The wind picked up and it was cold with some light snow falling. You could see where the snow was really coming down in the mountains nearby. It was now time to hustle a bit. We made it over the pass and we're rolling down the backside at a good pace. We were shooting for a camp about 3 miles after we hit the bottom of the valley to be as far as possible just before a big climb that we would start the next morning and still try to stay at the lower elevation. But after a quick break, the rain that had been an occasional drop here and there began to pick up. We found a campsite next to a small creek within a quarter mile and thought it was best to just set up early and wait it out. We set up and eventually the rain started. Even though it was kind of on and off we were happy with the choice we made to avoid getting too wet. The rain picked up throughout the night and we just tried to stay dry and warm, but once again, it was a cold night and mice were running around outside the tents periodically waking me up.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 141 (10/5).

It was probably the warmest and driest night in what seemed like an eternity. I still had trouble sleeping at times from being cold or uncomfortable, but still not as bad as it has been for a while. It was nice to wake up drier than when I went to sleep for a change. I heard a vehicle pull into the gravel parking lot and quickly got out of the tent. My hope was if they were locals they might be willing to give us an early ride into town for free, if we so were lucky. I spoke with the couple that got out of the truck briefly and they were parking there and doing a day hike on the PCT. They were nice, but no dice on the ride... then I saw the lady point and say something about all the fish as they looked down at the stream and I remembered reading in the Guthooks comments that the salmon were bedding/running in this river. After the couple left, I walked onto the bridge and looked over the edge to see all kinds of salmon swimming in the shallow water below. They were a dark red/maroon with olive green heads; their bodies deteriorating from the exertion it took to get them back here, far upstream from the ocean... focusing on the pain in my feet and knees, all of a sudden I felt some connection with them and their journey. I came back just as Butt'rs emerged from his tent and and we packed up. Another vehicle came and it was a work truck that pulled up next to the house there and it looked like he was going to be there a while so I didn't ask about a potential ride into town. Besides, we were starting to get close to the time the bus would arrive. I laid some clothes out to dry as we waited and it wasn't too long before the big red shuttle bus pulled up. We saw Will get off the bus and chatted with him and the driver for a bit. Will told us he had gotten in the day before and comped near the campground for free. He also had a new sleeping pad and said that he had gone the last week or two without a sleeping pad! My jaw dropped hearing this. I don't know how this kid didn't freeze, and just remembering how crappy it had been on me, I couldn't imagine how bad it was for him on the ground! I seriously don't know how he did it. He said he boiled water in his tent one night to keep warm, but I don't know how that really helped with all the condensation that would have caused. Crazy! We got on the bus and rode it into Stehekin with a stop off at their praised bakery (seemed just normal bakery to me but I'm not big on pastries and such) but I was starving and hadn't eaten anything since before dark the night before... so I got a latte a huge sticky bun and a doughnut. It was all good but not sure if it was rave worthy. I was feeling much better free food and coffee though, and we got back on the bus and went into the "town". We arrived at around 11am and had to get everything done by the time the bus left for its second and last round trip of the day which left at 2:30pm or so... so not much time to do everything we wanted. We went into the store there and I paid $15 for access to their WiFi and it was barely functional it was so slow. I took care of a few things online and then went with Butt'rs to the post office to pick up his resupply box and for us to both get a money order that we would then need to cash at the general store because this was the only way to get cash in the town (no ATM) and we needed cash for some things like laundry. We thought about it and decided no matter how fast we were we didn't have time to do laundry and take showers like we had wanted, but we really wanted cleans socks and to dry and few other items out so we washed our socks in the bathroom sink and then took them and put them in the dryer. I came back to the store and chose among a crappy overpriced selection for my next 4 days or so, which would also be the last leg of our hike before reaching Canada. This meant a lot of $.70 top ramen, peanut butter/Nutella and tortillas, some Snickers bars, some crackers, sardines, and chips... it wasn't looking great but would be enough to get me through... and I needed a new fuel canister, but they only had the huge ones which were $12 each and I didn't really have much of a choice. I will probably still be using this one for the next 3 years back in KY if they let me fly home with it, lol. Also, I got 3 cans of beer since they didn't have any hard alcohol for celebrating at the terminus (Butt'rs got a bottle of wine), which meant more heavy weight to carry for the last leg, and finally we paid for the round trip bus fare... all together this ran me like $80 or $90! That's not even counting the laundry or the WiFi, but I had little choice, what can you do? We packed our food away and went to the restaurant next store where I grabbed a cheeseburger and fries and we charged our batteries while we ate. The only good part about not having signal is that my phone was only needed as a map and camera and didn't use much over the past 5 days. By the time we finished eating we barely had enough time to get our laundry and finish packing up before the bus was beginning to load up. We finally met another hiker named Symba, and determined that he was the guy whose tracks we had followed for the last 3 days or so. He seemed cool and nice, but I just didn't have much time to get to know him before we were back on the bus and heading to the trail. It was all-in-all an effective and efficient in and out of town where everything that needed to happen got taken care of, and we were back at the high bridge by the afternoon. We both had to rearrange our things since they were just shoved in due to the rush. While rearranging, a nice guy from Sweden made us some coffee with his aeropress. That was nice, especially since we didn't buy any coffee in town and I was down to just one packet of Starbucks instant coffee. He even gave us like six scoops and put in a ziplock for us. Nice! We now had coffee even if we would have to just drink it cowboy style (just mixed in and not filtered). It was probably about 3:30pm or so when we headed back out and had to climb feeling all this new weight on our backs. It was slow going, but we had decided to just make it to a campsite called "Six Mile" that was about 11 miles in. We passed through a pretty great looking campsite early on. It even had canvas tents and a cabin, but it was too soon to stop. We got to the site a little after dark as the days were getting noticeably short. We walked down to the camp and it got much colder because it was a small valley with a creek flowing through. We had smelled a campfire and were a little hopeful for what that might mean. We walked into the camp and found 3 guys around a campfire with a cute black lab. We set up camp and chatted a little, but I finally asked if they minded if we shared in their fire, it had gotten really cold really fast. They let us warm up around their fire, and we talked as we cooked our dinners. We told them about thru hiking and they told us they were on a trout fishing trip and hiking from spot to spot doing like 6 miles in a day. They went to sleep and after dinner and then we did too... even though it was very very hard to leave that warm fire.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 140 (10/4).

Surprisingly, the mice had barely even touched my decoy trash/wrappers, but also didn't really bother me much throughout the night. It was still cold, however, and ultimately wasn't the best night's rest of my life. It seems like it's been quite a while since we have had a good night's sleep. Somehow I forced myself to get up and got ready a little ahead of Butt'rs. After making my own cup of coffee, I continued to use Butt'rs' fuel canister to boil water for him a cup too. I used his because I was almost out of canister fuel and figured it was best to try and stretch mine out because despite him having plenty for us to share, it would be annoying to have two people wanting to cook dinner at the same time with only one canister. So anyway, we had our coffee and headed off. We were getting low on supplies since we only planned on 4 days and it was looking more like 5-5 1/2 days to get to Stehekin. The only upside is that our packs were getting lighter by the day, and we were fortunate that for today we only had one 2500 ft climb followed by a very long and gradual descent into Stehekin. Early on we crossed a bridge and passed through a section of just massive old pines/junipers/cedars, they were truly impressive. I'm talking like 8 ft in diameter on some. It was a pretty laid back morning and the climb didn't seem very steep, even if it was going to be a quite long ascent. It was green and mossy up this whole part of the uphill trail, and we stopped for a rest and some food near a small seasonal creek. We were making decent time. Once we reached the top and had seen some pretty views and passed an interesting rocky valley with a steep round wall of mountainside,  Butt'rs had to take an emergency deuce right next the trail, lol. I went on ahead and left him to it hoping no one else would stumble upon that scene, haha. By the time Butt'rs caught up, it was starting to get late and we talked about our options. Eventually we just decided to push the whole way to the shuttle stop and high bridge, so we could just rest and not have to hike in the morning at all. So we stopped for an early dinner in daylight, and finished up what food we had left (which wasn't much) and we pushed on and hiked into the night. Since it was mid autumn festival the moon was brightly lighting up the mountain valley along the left hand side and we finally came around a bend and the moon jumped out and was bright as could be and really beautiful. If not for all the trees and their shadows, I honestly wouldn't have needed a headlamp at all with the moon being so bright. I thought about Angie and would have to settle on telling her about this part of the hike later since I couldn't call here and share the moment while we both looked at the moon (as is the tradition for this holiday). Finally, we made it down to the high bridge at about 9:30 or 10 something I guess... but when we stopped it was a record 37 miles we hiked that day!! We were tired and set up camp right by the picnic table in front of the forestry service private residence there. We crashed out pretty hard and fast since there was no cooking or even food left to eat in our packs for the most part.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 139 (10/3).

Today I woke up and was on a mission for 30 miles. These short days kept pushing back our finish date, and it was getting dangerously close to interfering with me getting home before Halloween. After getting packed up and ready a little earlier than Butt'rs, I popped two ibuprofen and made a big pot of very very strong instant coffee... and we were off! It was a beautiful day and we were making good time right from the start. We saw bear prints everywhere in the snow as we made our first climb of the day, along with coyote and deer prints as well. The bright red huckleberries in the valleys were beautiful and we stopped for lunch at the peak of the first big climb in the snow. I cooked two ramen with some textured vegetable protein, olive oil, a few other things and then made more extra strong coffee. I needed entertainment and fuel, like I said I was on a mission and was feeling good, like 30 was possible that day if we pushed and could make up for the last 4 days being sub 20-mile days. Man... that second round of coffee must have done it... I was a hiking machine after that. I was rolling down the backside of the mountain! Butt'rs and I saw another bear and I tried to get around the bend quickly to see if I could find him and watch him run away down the mountain but I lost him. I stopped at a lake for just a minute because it was so pretty and because the water looked so nice and clear blue I wanted to try out filming under water with my phone being waterproof and hadn't tried that out yet. But then the race was back on. We made our way down into a beautiful valley and then a couple of fighter jets spaced out rolled through the valley... one came though just before our next big climb started and was low enough to hurt my hears and was pretty intense. This downhill seemed to go on forever and we could see the switchbacks up the other mountain and it was obvious that this was going to be one of the worst cases of PUDs (pointless ups and downs) on the whole trail and it certainly was! Mile and miles of steep downhill and we were just rolling at near-jogging pace.  Finally, after crossing a bridge over a stream at the bottom, the trail went down another half mile or so before turning around and heading straight back up. They really should take you around the mountainside and cut off some of this pointless up and down. Normally I wouldn't complain, but this one is 3000ft down to a random point and then right back up 3000ft. It was just killer and uncalled for. But also, I was so jacked on caffeine and had the 30 mile goal in my head, so I just kept on rolling. I was a fair bit out in front of Butt'rs and I was only just starting the big uphill when I saw a hiker going SOBO. I said hey and stopped to chat for a bit. He said he had run into several NOBO hikers today... Will (the 19yr old from TX we had met at the trail angel's place a couple of days ago) I knew he was way ahead of us... he said he had seen him that morning so I guessed that put Will at least 15 maybe 20 miles out ahead of us and that he had just walked to Butt'rs! I was like Butt'rs?! Butt'rs is behind me I'm about 99% sure, but he insisted he had just talked to Butt'rs and then complained about how cold the last two nights have been. It was possible to have crossed the stream earlier on and taken a short cut that would have saved him more than a mile of down and up. Hmm... so it looked at this point as though one of two things was going on... either there was a second guy with the trailname "Butters" ahead (which was possible) or that Butt'rs had cut a corner and was now out ahead of me. With Butt'rs and I both being purists, however, I didn't think he would cut a big corner like that, and as weird as it sounded the notion of a second Butters seemed like the more likely of these two scenerios. This SOBO guy's name was Savage, and after just a brief chat I was on my way. Now I was really driven to go faster up this climb, which I usually go slower than Butt'rs on the climbs, but I wanted to either catch up to him or catch up to the other Butters. I was in a Butter sandwich, A Tale of Two Butt'rs, I can't believe it's not Butt'rs, lol, we're all silly things that came to mind when thinking of this situation. Unfortunately this side of the hill was facing south and had dried out enough that I couldn't make out any clear shoe prints the whole way up. I would have been able to recognize Butt'rs' New Balances and could have known whether he was really ahead of me or not. I did think it was odd that we had been following a set of tracks for two days or so now from a hiker who had passed us the morning we let the sun dry our tents out and I had been following these Altra prints for a while now and I figured this must be the person savage had just talked to, but I still hoped to catch him and see if his name really was Butters/Butt'rs. Finally, after a grueling 3000 ft climb I made it to the snow line and could see clearly that Butt'rs was indeed still behind me and had not taken the shortcut and gotten out ahead of me. I had told him that I wasn't going to take a break until I reached the top, but since it was snowy I thought I would just go a little further or maybe stop of the opposite side of the flat top area before the final descent of the day. About half way across the top flat part I saw another much smaller bear who was sitting and eating huckleberries on a hillside near a small tree (for some reason I knew I was about to see one before I saw him, had this weird feeling he was there before actually seeing him). He sat there and hesitated for a second but then ran away too; it's wild how these bears just get out of dodge when a human is near. But in looking down I saw tons of nice huckleberries and decided to wait for Butt'rs while eating as many of these berries as I could. I had eaten a good number of these when Butt'rs finally rolled up and we discussed the whole situation with Savage. It was weird, but Butt'rs thinks he was tripping on acid and must have gotten confused hearing me say Butt'rs and just kept saying the wrong name of the guy ahead of us. I wasn't paying that close attention to him personally to notice if he was tripping or not, but anyway it was all figured out that at least Butt'rs was indeed behind me and we took off down the mountain. We had gotten cold sitting up at the high elevation while eating the berries. I was once again feeling driven and got out ahead of Butt'rs and I was hoping to keep pushing even after we reached the bottom and try to make it to a campsite a few miles further away. But while going downhill, I was reading through the Guthooks app and saw that the town of Stehekin had already reduced their shuttle service down to twice a day rather than the normal four times during peak season... thus meaning that even if we pushed on we would really have to haul ass to get there by 3pm on October 4th if I wanted to get into the resort/town in order to call Angie on Mid-Autumn Festival... but we would also have agree to hike into the night tonight and probably wake up at 4am or so to make it, and even still would run the chance of just not making it in time (and to be honest, I knew he had little incentive to push like that personally). I sat down on the trail disappointed knowing we wouldn't be able to make it and that I wouldn't be able to call Angie on this holiday, it would be the first I hadn't been able to swing something from the trail on a special day and the first time to not talk with her on this particular holiday. So I just sat there and waited on Butt'rs while resting and looking at all the comments on the app so I'd know what to expect whenever we would eventually make it into Stehekin. Finally, Butt'rs came and said he was beat. I told him I would have wanted to push on, but since it was impossible to make it by tomorrow night's last shuttle that there was no point in killing ourselves, and we camped at a site beside a silty river after a 24-mile day with an estimated 9,000 ft of elevation gain throughout the day! It had been a rough-@ss day, and we were both beat and hurting all over. So at Mile 2532.6 we set up camp, ate, threw out decoy thrash for mice, and went to sleep.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 138 (10/2).

I woke up before much light was out and could see my rainfly stiff with a coating of ice. I was SO done with this cold! I was drifting in and out from consciousness, but at least the rain had stopped. When I finally woke up for real, I could see sunlight hitting my tent!!! Yay!!! And it was warming up quickly. The ice on my rain fly had melted and before long was even drying. I was so happy and relieved. I unzipped my rain fly and looked out to snow on the ground and blue skies above. It still took us a while to recover from the night and to get breakfast down before get moving outside the tents. We took our time to try and let things dry off at least a little in the morning sunlight. After that, it was time to head out. After a very short time of hiking down the trail, Butt'rs was just ahead of me when we came around a bend and I hear him say, "bear!" I looked down, and sure enough, there was a big black bear about 30 yards away running down the hillside away from us! I couldn't believe it... after this whole time I FINALLY saw a bear about 150 miles from Canada! The goofy thing was racing away from us down the hill and slipped in the snow and fell sliding on his face for a minute, lol, before pushing back up and continuing to run out of sight. I was pretty excited to finally have seen my first bear on the PCT as I really didn't think I was going to get to see one at all. We kept going and were trying to make better time now that conditions were better, but even so it was still cold and we had to climb up to some higher elevations. As we went up the snow was slushy on the trail. This made it very slippery on the trail and kept our feet cold and wet while the temps kept falling as we ascended. Again, it was fairly cold and we could see some deep (undisturbed) snow on the mountains ahead and we both were hoping we wouldn't have to go through any of it. Once we finally reached the peak the snow wasn't too deep, but the backside of the mountain was complete white and it was cold on the way down. At the peak we had about 10 ft of trail where we magically had a signal get through. I saw a message from Angie pop up telling me she had a person back into her car and that she'd had a bad week, but that she had talked to my mom about it and was feeling better now. I responded with a few messages, but then I had a text come in from Butt'rs mom asking me to please have him call her. His phone wasn't getting a signal, and he said it was bad how she worded the message and asked to use me phone. Sure enough, something bad had happened I could tell from the conversation. After he got off the phone he told me his cousin had been killed in a mass shooting at a country music concert in Las Vegas along with 57 other people. Insane and tragic and I felt bad for him getting this news days from anywhere and not being able to do anything about it. We were freezing at this point, and since Angie hadn't replied we just hurried down the other side into cold snow. I stopped only for a minute even though I really didn't want to because we were at 2500 miles and I wrote a mile marker in the snow to keep with my pics of every hundred miles like I have done the whole trail. Finally, after what seemed like forever we got down below the snow line and we started to warm up again. at Mile 2508.8 there was a campground and we decided to stop there. It was a bit early, but given th news and how rough it had all been lately we just stopped there. I thought I would try to make a fire for a change, but with how wet it all was I knew it would take some effort. At some point I got it started with hand sanitizer and was thinking I had it and started to multitask, but by boiling water and getting ready for dinner on my stove I hadn't kept a good enough eye on the fire and accidentally let it go out. I tried to get it going again, I figure it would be good for our morale, and kind of just wanted to do something nice for Butt'rs, but it just didn't want to catch. Since it was almost dark and Butt'rs had already gone into his tent I just gave up on the idea. I got in my tent, freezer bag cooked one of my home made dehydrated meals and went to sleep.

[thehikingnerd]

Day 137 (10/1).

Sleep was on and off all night with changing positions, getting wet/condensation, and the dripping rain fly... the frosting on the cake was when despite the miserable weather the persistent little asshole mice still decided to make an appearance in the night and entered my tent through the broken zipper and literally jumped on my head which was covered by the Frogg Toggs jacket. Right away I woke up and that little rodent had escaped, I wanted to just crush him with my hand. So I fixed the zipper in the night and that was enough to keep them out but I could still hear them chewing on wrappers close by. So... another terrible night's sleep and it was still freezing and damp. I hadn't gotten too wet in the night even though there was a glossy layer of water between my tent floor and sleeping pad but I somehow managed to keep my sleeping bag surprisingly dry by carefully dealing with sleeping positions. Butt'rs was less fortunate and said all of his things were wet if not soaked. We are really starting to see that the fly creek tents are great in many ways but suck for rainy conditions, my issues could stem from having an older tent with years of use prior to the PCT, but Butt'rs was new at the start of the trail. Not sure they aren't great or if we had just worn them out. I was ready to go pretty early after eating some breakfast in my tent, but Butt'rs wasn't about to leave. I was pretty easy to convince to wait longer, as I also wasn't looking forward to leaving my tent and relative warmth to go outside... but I had to go so badly and finally broke down and used my Gatorade bottle as a pee jug filling it up and stopping short but it gave me another half hour to an hour before I would eventually have to put on wet rain gear and break down a tent in the rain. Butt'rs said he wanted to wait for a break in the rain, but it never really came and we finally rolled out and packed up in just a slight slow down in the rain. We went back and forth between rain and snow for a while at different elevations but eventually it became solid snow. We tried to pace ourselves so that we wouldn't sweat inside our rain gear but also have enough body heat to stay somewhat warm. Eventually, we got to the point that we were just plain cold as our jackets had wetted-out again. My dads old rain suit I was using to save money, I was seeing now that it was deteriorating in terms of waterproofness and you could see places all over where the internal lining had crumbled completely off. Yeah, I wished I had known that when deciding to use the rain suit. Even though we had higher aspersions for the day, after a late start we again just took a short day to limit how long we were out there suffering in the cold. This sh!t was getting very old, but we knew the rain and snow should stop tomorrow at some point, and it was about all we could do to just wait and hope. So at a relatively lower elevation we found a snow covered campsite and set up in the grass beside it with the least amount of snow cover we could find, a spot that seemed a little sheltered by trees on one side. We set up our already wet tents, this time I staked it out properly before hand but with having it be the second wet day in a row it was starting out pretty wet inside before the night even began. Still we got in a tried to limit our wet conditions as best as possible and it was much colder than the night before. Butt'rs even burned his stove inside of his tent just to warm up a little. It was great, he said, while it was on, but as soon as he turned it off he was right back to being cold and wet. I still wasn't too wet and the mice left me alone for the night thankfully, but it was yet another cold, on again off again crappy, freezing night. There just wasn't much you could do about it other than endure the suffering and wait for morning... and hope the rain/snow had stopped by then.