Pacific Crest Trail: Washington

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18th & 19th August: Day 120 & 121 – Mile 2,194

Day 120 – mile 2,168
Day 121 – mile 2,194
 
Walking all day in the heat, badly hungover from the festival.
 
I’ve almost made it, when I come out onto a dirt road. There is a man there, waiting for me mercilessly. He has a chair and a 24 pack of beer.
 
I start repeating the litany of beer under my breath.
** Must be grateful for free beer **
** Must be grateful for free beer **

“Hey!”, he says, “Are you a thru-hiker?! Come and have a beer!”

Urgh. I just hope it’s not a 7% IPA because I will be sick on him.
** must be grateful for free beer **
** beer is the little death that kills me over and over. Without beer, I die but once **

You might wonder how experimental a forest can really be

But then you’ve never been to the Wind River Experimental Forest..

 

…Yes, they have literally grown the whole thing upside down.  It’s wild.

20th to 23rd August: Day 122 & 125 – Mile 2,282

Day 122 – mile 2,224
Day 123 – mile 2,230
Day 124 – mile 2,256
Day 125 – mile 2,282
 
Walking the trail with various hikers on and off.  Ziplock, Schoolbus, Ent.
 
Conversations with Ziplock were sometimes quite confusing.  I didn’t recognise her at first, and she didn’t recognise me, but actually we had met 1,500 miles before. I realise this when she tells me that she was part of the Track Team in the Sierra.
 
Me: ah, we must have been in the same pickup truck up to the Kearsage trailhead
Z: no.. I don’t think so
Me: Hm. Your friend got the owner of the gas station to take us in his pickup. We paid $8 each.
Z: no, not me
Me: there was 11 of us packed in… it was quite a memorable trip.
Z: …….
Me: You were filming it.
Z: nope
Me: but
Z: no
 
The next day –
Waiting at the highway to go down to Trout Lake in a pickup
 
Another hiker: Ziplock, when was the last time you were in a pickup?
Z: oh well! My friend got the guy at the gas station near Kearsage pass trailhead to take us up for like $8 each, there was loads of us packed in, it was crazy
Me: that’s the trip I was talking about yesterday!!
Z: ohh.
Me: I described it in a lot of detail
Z: but I didn’t remember *you*, so..
Me: so.. that meant you thought.. it might not have happened to you?
Z:….
Me: but.. it did happen to you?
Z: Yes
Me: … are we questioning whether it happened to me?

A GDPR compliant photo of Ziplock, Schoolbus and Ent

There was a lady in a red evening dress up here.
 
It was a photo shoot. On a knife edge ridge. I was sort of nervously edging around it. Then came across her – full length evening dress, posing, face into the wind. I felt like I should be walking past heroically. but just continued my nervous shuffle.

Ongoing entertainment from my nails coming off as side effect of antibiotics – pine needle under the nail.

24th August: Day 126 – Mile 2,308

White pass. Resupply at a gas station. I buy a lot of Luna Bars – the gender mirror of a Clif bar. Luna bars taste better (Clif bars taste like the waste product from a stodge factory) – and also have the advantage of containing all the things an active lady needs. I call them Ladybars.
The marketing of Ladybars has all the subtle gender awareness you would expect from a room full of rich white men brainstorming hard on everything they know about women.
 
I’m assuming something along the lines of:
 
Chair of the marketing meeting: come on guys, there are 10 MBAs between us – we can think this one out. What do we know about women?
Steve: they’re… small?
Chair: yes! They are small. Make the bars a bit smaller!
Gary: my wife likes.. fruit
Chair: yes. I think that is a thing. Does anyone know any fruits?
Steve: I think.. a lemon is a fruit?
Chair: perfect. A lemon cereal bar. Doesn’t make sense to me! But neither do women – who’s with me?
All: <laughter>
Chair: now what about a name.. I’m aware that periods are a hot lady topic – is there something we can do with that?
Steve: err, aren’t we supposed to steer completely clear of that?
Chair: make it subtle
Gary: we could call them lunar bars – like, cos of lunar cycles
Chair: subtler?
Gary: drop the ‘r’?
Chair: perfect
 

25th August: Day 127 – Mile 2,326

Peak trail magic is achieved at Chinook pass.

Greg and Alana (my sister’s friends) have come up to the pass to meet me, with a keg of fresh beer and ice cream. It’s amazing.
 
People are very grateful to them. I try a few times to convince the other hikers that they should really also be grateful to me – because Greg and Alana met my sister in New Zealand and have come up to see me as a result of that. But a lack of imagination leads to the general response being ‘Ahhhh, so it’s thanks to your sister then!’. 
 
Then another set of people arrive also to do trail magic – cooking tacos. So we have freshly made tacos, beer and ice cream.
It’s the greatest day for trail magic – thanks again Greg and Alana!
 
Then trail royalty arrives – Terrie Anderson. Known to every thru-hiker because her house was open to all hikers on their way through Southern California. Casa de Luna (her house) is closing this year after 20 years of hosting hikers – she’s up in Washington as they’re planning to move there.
 
2019 is probably the last year for all three of the famous couples who open their house to PCT hikers. The massive increase in the volume of hikers has significantly changed what this is about since they all started decades ago.

26th to 31st August: Day 128 – Day 133 – Mile 2,453

Day 128 – mile 2,352 
Day 129 – mile 2,382
Day 130 – mile 2,394
Day 131 – mile 2,404
Day 132 – mile 2,430
Day 133 – mile 2,453
 
Snoqualmie Pass
 
There’s a motel at this road pass. Ent and I deploy our tried and tested elite athlete post workout recovery plan: a highly regimented timetable of drinking beer, eating fast food, and watching tv.
 
Three hikers we’ve been walking with for a while leave the trail here to enact an unlikely plan to circumvent US visa control – their current 6 months is running out so they drive to the Canadian border and back again to get a new 6 months stamped. You would think that wouldn’t work – and you will turn out to be right.

Mine and Ent’s twin Hillebergs pitched majestically in the gravel next to a road

Good view here (referring to the view of my homemade ultra light groundsheet under my tent)

1st to 7th September: Day 134 – Day 140 – Mile 2,550

Day 134 to 136 – mile 2,464 
Day 137 – mile 2,475
Day 138 – mile 2,501
Day 139 – mile 2,525
Day 140 – mile 2,550
 
Ent falls ill. But has the good sense to do it while in a Bavarian-themed town.
 
I mean, in any town. The Bavarian-theme doesn’t help specifically.
 
I supportively stay by his bedside. Well, it’s a double motel room, so I have to stay by his bedside. But I eat cheetos and chocolate for the both of us in a supportive way.
 
I also spend this time attempting to update my CV on my phone, in order to propel myself back into the middle echelons of NHS finance when I get back to the UK in just over a week.
 
Back on the trail, Ent recovers. At the end of the day I write in my notes “Ent made it & looked much better after a few swigs of fireball – surely a sustainable solution”
 
And on the last of these days, I leap around a corner to find a black bear staring back at me on the trail. Out of a sense of mutual respect, we don’t eat each other.

From the mountains…

Down to what is undoubtedly Bavaria

The only real chocolate in the shop is individually wrapped. Eating 200g of chocolate in this way is a lot of effort, but I’ll get there.

8th to 11th September: Day 141 to Day 144 – Mile 2,638

Day 141 – mile 2,572
Day 142 – mile 2,584
Day 143 – mile 2,610
Day 144 – mile 2,638
 
It rains. The normal PCTers scatter, hiding in their tents, under trees, getting umbrellas out etc. I’m so confident in the rain that I don’t even put my raincoat on – I’m sure it will stop and I’ll dry out before I notice the cold – I overtake other hikers, with a significant amount of smugness, who are messing about with their rain gear. I’ve done this many times as a slightly feeble way of showing off my Scottish training.
 
Unfortunately, this time I have badly miscalculated. The rain stops, but cold from the increased elevation means I’m not drying out quickly enough, and I’m starting to get dangerously cold.
 
This leads to the embarrassing situation, where, despite the fact it is no longer raining, it is me that now has to stop, strip completely naked on trail, and change into my spare clothes – which means basically my rain gear.
 
Upshot: the last guy I overtook putting on his rain gear in the rain, now overtakes me, naked, and putting my rain gear on in the sun.
 
He acknowledges me with a totally deserved double dose of smugness, though also mixed with a fair amount of bafflement.

Salsa and Ent

12th September: Day 145 – Mile 2,653

 

🎵 🎵And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain
I’ll make, the last cold mash, it will be gross, of that I’m certain
I walked, a walk that’s full..  I got a beer at every highway
And more, much more than this, I did it… my way 🎵 🎵

Well, the way as exactly mandated by the Pacific Crest Trail Association – but you get the idea
 

Anyway

Canada!

THE END

Epilogue:

Final view of the Northern Cascades before Canada.

The Swiss! (Or, some of them)

At the Canadian border and end of the trail

Teatime – met 1,140 miles ago near Mt Shasta
Ent – met 1,240 miles ago near Burney
Mountain, Lion – met 1,940 miles ago on the way into the Sierra

A difficult final hitch back to civilization.

But after a car, taxi, bus, bus, train, bus, bus journey I got to Seattle to visit a friend and then fly home.

13

13 finishes the PCT in 92 days.

He’s now planning for the Continental Divide Trail

Photos:
His entry in the trail log at the Canadian border

The thru-hiker equivalent of celebrating with champagne in a fancy wine bar – drinking ranch dressing in a Carl’s junior (y’know, for the calories)

Grasshopper

After hurting his ankle around mile 1,200, he heroically walked on another 600 miles before having to give up at Crater Lake.

But surely he’ll return!

Ent

Ent returns home to have his PhD bestowed on him, after intellectually crushing the Swiss public that gathered to challenge it (Vivas are harder there!)

The record of his farts on trail is published to critical acclaim.

He still drinks fireball and listens to ABBA in his spare time.

Indy

I return to the warm embrace of NHS administration.

I am planning my next adventure – will it be the CDT? The Te Araroa? The South West Coast Path? Or will it be sitting watching TV in pandemic induced isolation?  Who knows, or dares to dream.

Photos:
Young and fresh faced in the desert

Old and drunk in Canada

Within 2 weeks of getting back, I’m camping again in the sweet rain of the Lake District, with my sister’s family.