Stehekin to Canada

TOTAL PCT MILES: 1851.3
PCT mile 2580 to PCT mile 2660
Section mileage: 110
Days: 9/23 - 9/28

Stehekin was like a storybook town, with one road that led from the trail to the dock. It is isolated, in space and communication from the outside world. To get to Stehekin, you need to take a ferry across a big lake or hike in like us. The lake is framed with mountains and fog. There is no cell phone or landline phone service. No internet. Just a community garden, an inn, and the most incredible bakery in the world. The winter population is only 61 hardy souls.

We were determined to get in and out of the town in one day. Rain was forecast for the next couple of days, and we wanted to get a head start on it. Four hours later, we had managed to pick up our resupply package, shower, do laundry, paw through hiker boxes, charge our electronics, and eat more food.

We took the bus back to the bakery, where we each selected a few baked goods for the last section of the trail. Without outside communication, we decided to play a high speed matching card game intended for children. For hours. It was hugely entertaining. We took the last bus of the evening back to the trail. We hiked a few miles out and set up under a big tree, just as the rain began. This was sure, we knew, to be the start of a lot of rain.

The next morning, we slept in until after 9. Despite the rain, the morning wasn't so bad. We walked through the mist with occasional drizzle, but since we were hiking uphill we stayed warm. We ran into a big, eight person group taking a lunch break together. "What is that? Mountain hardware?" One of the hikers called to Craig jokingly. Craig is using a stylish, heavy duty trash bag as a pack cover. It's surprisingly effective.

By Rainy Pass, it had really started to rain. "Why is this called Rainy Pass?" Said no-one, ever, in September. We continued climbing, but our arms were numb with cold. We warmed as we climbed higher, past tamarack trees with yellowing needles. Little rivulets of water ran across the trail. We found a little camping spot just shy of Cutthroat Pass 22 miles into our day. The clouds had blown past for a moment, so we took advantage of the break in the rain to set up our tent. We got a glimpse of the ridge and the jagged mountains south of us before zipping up the tarp to hide from the elements.

On the ridge, it was a cold night. We didn't start until 11 as it was freezing outside and still raining. Even in the tent, we could feel the chill of clouds blowing along the ridge. When we gathered the nerve to start, it was still cold and wet. Unfortunately, we were descending the mountain, so hiking didn't warm us much. By 3 in the afternoon, we had only gone 11 miles, but I was done hiking. We set up in the woods quickly. For the rest of the day, we read The Goldfinch aloud and made tea to warm up.

Since we bailed on the rain the day before, we had set ourselves up for a long day. We wanted to get close enough to the Canadian border so that we could slackpack ourselves there and back in a day. It was cloudy in the morning, but at least it wasn't raining again, and we had climb to warm us up. A couple times the sun blinked at us before the clouds swept through again. Long enough to give us a beautiful rainbow in the valley, but too brief for us to really dry out. Tall peaks were silhouetted behind the clouds. We descended to a completely abandoned Harts Pass, where we ate bagel sandwiches (thank you Stehekin bakery) for a chilly lunch.

Up we climbed into more misty, probably scenic mountains. We headlamped for about an hour to the top of a hill where we set up camp in a lumpy field. 31 miles. Tomorrow, to the border. To celebrate our long day and anticipated long day, I made double Teriyaki noodles with extra oil. It was cold and the ground was uneven, so I set up the stove in the middle of the tent. "Is that stable?" Craig asked nervously. "I think so," I responded. I reached to zip the tent and the pot toppled over, spilling greasy noodle water all over the inside of the tent and my sleeping pad. I almost started crying. Craig started giggling. "Not funny yet," I said. We used our bandanas to sop up the liquid, but it was still oily. Craig had the ingenious idea of using wet wipes to cut the grease. The great Teriyaki disaster of 2014.

The noodle grease attracted a whole colony of mice. All night we could hear them running around the tent and under it. We spotlighted one of them clinging to the mesh on the ceiling. It had beady little eyes and an adorable pointy nose. "Should we kill him?" Craig asked. Ever since he had woken to the mouse nibbling on his ear, Craig's been especially weary of mice. The mouse escaped the tent before we had to choose his fate. We duct taped the hole and went back to sleep. We had a big day ahead of us.

The next morning, we left camp at sunrise with the tent relatively mouse-proofed. The tent and grass were covered in a thick coat of frost. But! The sun was out and the sky was blue blue blue for the first time in (what felt like) forever! And it was my 30th birthday. We excitedly left camp, hiking in and out of the cold shade of the mountains. We hiked the long switchbacks up Woody Pass, passing thruhikers carrying their full loads. We stopped only once on the 15 miles to the border, to filter a liter of water. Craig presented me with a birthday present: the last Snickers bar. We continued to descend into the valley, to the anticlimactic border crossing in a shaded little clearing. There was a collection of little pillars marking the spot, and a couple of thruhikers taking photos. Glimmer and Coldstart, drinking little bottles of champagne. We split my last Stehekin baked good: a sticky bun, stale by now but still delicious, and a little box of wine, before turning around and retracing our steps back up the mountain.

We congratulated elated thruhikers as we passed them, heading for the border and the end of their hikes. By dusk, we were back at our tent. The mice had thankfully left it alone. Thirty miles for my thirtieth birthday. I could not think of a more fitting way to celebrate.

The next morning, we hiked the fifteen miles back to Harts Pass, where we hoped to find a ride down the mountain. We were thrilled when a young Polish couple picked us up. Down in the nearest outpost of Mazama, we crammed in sandwiches, beer, and chips until we could barely wobble to the highway to try our luck at hitching to Bellingham. We hadn't even reached the highway when a station wagon with a couple and their dog pulled off to offer a ride. And in a flash, this section of the trail was over.