2,555 miles – It’s All About Adaptation!

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The last 98 miles from Skykomish, WA have been by far the hardest mentally and physically on the trip.

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The rain has been constant all four days with the sun only breaking through as we rolled up into Stehekin.

The first night out, we set up our tent in the pouring rain, ate a pasta side dinner, and then fell asleep.  All of a sudden in the pitch black, I hear Swift scrambling for his headlamp so I immediately jump up to grab mine. We have a mouse visitor in our tent.  For the next two minutes we work on herding him out back into the pouring rain.  I finally caught him in my down jacket and tossed him out. We looked all around for where out visitor came from, but could not find a hole in our tent!

I lay my head back on my pillow, with my headlamp on and my eyes circling the tent. Swift turned my headlamp off and encouraged me to try and go back to sleep but I refused. The rain continued to play the drums on our tent and I was slowly lulled back to sleep until “Kaplunk!” A mouse fell onto my sleeping bag, and the tent “round up” started all over again. This time I found the hole in the top of our tent where they were coming in.

In the morning, we observed that the side of our tent looks like a cat’s scratching stand. With tired minds and bodies, we packed our bags and continued on hiking with our friends Cliffhanger and Milkshake.  We were successful in keeping most of our bedding dry for our first night.

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The days were long, cold, and we walked in a world covered in a dense fog. We unfortunately never saw Glacier Peak, although we hear it is a spectacular sight. Yesterday, we calculated out that we had hiked more than 10,000 feet in elevation gain in one day – and more than 20,000 feet in elevation change in three days.  Lots of steep mountains with deep valleys…. And more rain.

[singlepic id=95 w=320 h=240 float=right]On our last morning out, we were thankful to be getting to town, as our gear was completely soaked and our spirits low.  We were disappointed to find out that our food resupply box was not delivered.  It was destroyed by our US Postal Service, because we inadvertently used a former wine box to repack our resupply at our last stop – not thinking that using such a container would be a problem. [singlepic id=94 w=320 h=240 float=left] Fortunately, a loving community of PCT hikers and guests at the ranch we are visiting have all pitched in to give us enough food to make it our last four days to the border.

I have a mysterious spider bite covering my leg as well as cut up ankles.  None of that matters though, as we enjoy a beautiful afternoon in the best trail town of tiny Stehekin, at a ranch where we get to enjoy three buffet meals.

83 miles to the Canadian border.  The tears are already starting to form.

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~Buckeye