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New Zealand part 11 – 3 Days to Angelus Hut

Angelus Hut day 1
Mt Robers car park to Bushline Hut

The trail descends away from the car park for a long while before beginning a gradual, almost gentle climb towards bush line. In the late afternoon sun I can move slowly without the agony of screaming muscles. It’s something I’ve almost forgotten I can do.

The last few years have been more painful than not. Certainly, in the shared global trauma that has beset us all, but more deeply in my personal life, my health, and all the little ways those pains worked their way into the things I loved. My chronically fluctuating thyroid made exercise feel impossible, fatigue constant or else the exertion made me feel like ripping my skin off, a vibrating tangle of loose wires. My mental health made everything else feel an insurmountable chore of drudgery, a darkened tunnel of medications and appointments and days spent inert on the couch, unable to even sleep away the torment and stupor.

I learned that in the midst of crisis no stone is left unturned as pain stole the light from everything I was and wanted. Why did my legs sear on every uphill, why did my ski boots cause my feet to cramp and go numb before my weakened muscles could even have their say. Why did my knees hurt when I ran. Why did my body collect side effects like medals. Why was nothing helping, why wasn’t it getting any easier. A thousand unanswerable questions so often invisible and churning to rancid fear in my gut. For all the times someone said I sounded better I died a little inside, felt a little further away from the rest of the world though all I could ever say was “thank you.” I feared I would fracture apart so completely that I would lose everything, person, and joy I had ever known, every desire I ever cherished.

And now comes the part where I offer a lesson, serve a platitude. Tell you that on this late summer’s day I have turned my face to resounding optimism and hope, liberated, as it were, from darkness by the brilliant New Zealand sun. But that would be a lie—a nasty habit I’m trying to do less of. Because the truth is this: the scar on my neck from where they cut out my thyroid still aches when I work too hard, my medications are still a ham-fisted juggernaut keeping the darkness at bay, yes, but bringing with it a slew of side effects as well—all this piled into a body that has never felt more and less like my own. But I can say this, on this late summer day under the brilliant New Zealand sun, that today is a good day, that the sun is warm and long in the way only early fall can do. And that is not enough, because I want so much more for myself than good enough; but it’s good enough, if only for today.


Angelus Hut day 2 –
Bushline Hut to Angelus Hut


The morning comes on slowly, doused in thin clouds wrapped softly around the hut. We play out our morning chores with little haste, waiting until the clouds and our lethargy burn away revealing a brilliant blue sky shining gleefully upon golden grasses.

The climb, though moderate, feels unfairly difficult in the wake of yesterday’s relative ease. My previously piano wire calves feel okay so long as I tread carefully, but my low back burns with exertion and strain and I wondered how long I can keep going, if I’ll be forced to turn around and retreat to the car. But I have grown so entirely sick of my body’s many betrayals that I simply force my way forward, hoping that with time the pressure will ease.

Across grey rock speckled through with sun-tanned grass the trail rises and falls, an ungainly dragon’s spine. And then, almost without me noticing, my back eases and my body begins to churn slowly through the literal steps I have taken so many times before. A treasure wrapped in a mystery. Maybe it only takes me two hours and a snack break to finally warm up. Maybe, it simply takes me this long for the sedation from the meds that keep my brain in order to release me from their hold. I wish to know as much as I don’t care to think about it now because the best part of this entire route is below my feet, right now.



The dragon’s spine narrows in on itself until we are sliding sinuously across steep scree fields that required my entire attention to avoid slipping and falling. Hand over hand climbing along mellow holds just perilous enough to make it fun and which drag my mind away from anything more than that exact moment and the handhold that comes next. The endorphin rush, to be in the sun and the wind on high, my body working as I demand of it. Burning from exertion and only little bits of pain sparkling to life here and there. This mellow class 2 climbing has become my favorite way to travel through the mountains, slow and methodical as it is. Through exposure and panic attacks and learning how to breathe while crying at altitude I have transformed a terror into a delight. This space between trail and cliff no longer frightens me but instead fills me with the sort of quiet exultation that I have only ever found in the mountains.


Eventually, after hours of careful footwork the trail decides it is time to go down towards the sparkling blue lakes of Angelus Hut. Nestled in a protective bowl the hut greets us with just a few other hikers, a sign as good as any that summer is coming to an end in the southern hemisphere.


Day 3 —
Angelus Hut to Mt Roberts car park


The morning starts with the crinkle of synthetic fabrics wrapped around warm beverages as our fellow hikers and us postpone venturing out into the cold rainy morning. Modern though Angelus Hut is, it creaks under the strain of the pulverizing wind which seemingly emanates from everywhere and nowhere at once, protected as we are inside our snow globe inside a cloud inside the storm. Eventually, finally, reluctantly it’s time to go.

The morning starts with a quick scramble up to the ridge, fog dense and wind ripping. My gloved hands are soaked through before we reach the trail junction but at least they’re warm. A theme for the day: soaked but at least I’m warm.

We make our way down the valley which will lead us back to the car park. A stream springs to life out of nowhere, a collection of drops of water slid from blades of grass all coming together to create a bubbling little torrent slicing through the base of an ever-widening valley. At first we can simply step over the stream, but soon the waters have grown until we are wading through knee-deep waters that require careful planning before each crossing.

Progress feels slow, progress is slow as we navigate through shoe-sucking mud and only barely there trail. The rain puts on its many faces and we begin to know each one intimately as we walk. Misting rain. Barely there rain. Torrential rain. Soaking rain. Rain that might actually be heavy fog or the other way round. A cloud of rain inside the storm inside my wet but warm bubble of clothing. And so it goes: across the river, into the trees, navigating up over rocks and tree roots and mud slides only to come back down again. Again. Again and again and walking until finally there is no more up and down only the firm grip of the road and the last few meters to our car.

Just as we reach the car the snow begins and I do a little dance in celebration, cheering: snow! Snow! I adore the snow, the magic and light upon the sky.
Through, in this moment I am more than grateful to be off the trail as the flakes begin to thicken and the heat in the car merrily whirls around my chilled hands.

The bubble of our car slides out of the bubble of clouds within the storm and soon we are whisking across dry roads on our way to Nelson. The sun cracks the sky and slips across the land in warm, late-summer’s glow. Rolling green hills like something out of a fairy tale remind me of the best parts of rural Colorado where the mountains give way to the plains and forests give way to pastures give way to cities and then all at once we’re in Nelson, unloading our damp things in the car park of our hostel.

At the front desk Keith pays for the room in wet bills that he has to wipe dry before handing them to the cheerful attendant. Once inside our room our bags explode and wet clothes and coats and sleeping bags are hung over every available surface. A ritual we are only too familiar with after winter and fall camping trips in Washington. It strikes me that this is what fall looks like off the trail, that our endless summer may in fact be approaching an end.

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New Zealand part 10 – Nothing, Nothing

It’s a damp, greying kind of day, all low clouds and drizzle. It’s a bickering over nothing, irritated at everything kinda day. It’s the kind of day, in truth, that I am always tempted to omit from travelogs and stories told. Filled not so much with painful sweeping truths as grimy little realities of life on the road.

The first hours of the morning are full of
Fine.
Sure.
Whatever you want.
Fine.

And then we’re on the road, driving north from little Franz Josef, not so much a town as a dot on the map serving one thing: helicopter tours of the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers. When we stopped there the night before not even the two restaurants in town were open. This morning the streets are empty, as an impending rain storm has shuttered any chance of a helicopter ride. The same storm has also forced us to cancel two additional backpacking trips because of the danger of flooding and becoming trapped in the backcountry; grinding our trip to a halt and leaving both of us frustrated.

But when you’re on the road things don’t stop, they only change direction. So we putter our tiny car into the oncoming rain and begin our drive up the coast. The forecast calls for near-biblical amounts of rain along the West Coast but the storm is late in its arrival and we drive through a landscape ever-changing. One minute windshield wipers flailing against the torrent the next minute the roads are nearly dry and one could be forgiven for describing the sky as just the littlest bit blue. A familiar refrain presses against my lips against the obvious unreality: “what a beautiful day.” But it is, it is a remarkably beautiful day even with the mountains hidden by clouds, the sea blockaded by shrubby green-brown trees. Because bad days happen wherever you are and I’d rather be in a small car on the road than in my small apartment back in Seattle. The joy of being somewhere new, even on the bad days, so entirely eclipses the mundanity of the familiar that I cannot help but say it: “what a beautiful day.”

—
We shut off the car in the small town of Greymouth, a former mining town stuck somewhere in the middle of reinventing itself into a tourist town. Too bad there’s nothing to do here.

That night Keith and I lay in bed and watch as the lightning illuminates the sky, bright as a cosmic spotlight but without the accompanying thunder; the melodramatics without the danger. The storm is here but we are safe in our little rented bed for two. A nest of home within each other, not so much us against the world, more like us within the world, a center, a home from which the road doesn’t feel so chaotic.

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A Week to Revisit

Hello my beautiful readers! Thank you for coming to this site today and every Friday to read my posts. This week I’m reposting an old favorite titled Things I’ve Learned From the Trees. I’ve never reposted a blog before, so I’ll be transparent as to why I’m doing it now.

This week I traveled to Colorado to visit friends and family and ski until my legs fell off. And during this week I gave myself permission to fully break from all the obligations I manage on a weekly basis and just rest. This break meant that when 10pm Thursday night rolled around my ski bags were packed and my blog had been left unattended. In placing family over productivity something had to get cut and this week it was the blog. But more than that, I have come to value my writing practice, and the small community we are growing here, too much to fire off a lazy post. So for now I’ll leave you with a repost that I love and an image that I took while skiing with my parents this week. Next week I’ll be back with a new post and I hope you’ll be here to read it.

Things I’ve Learned From the Trees

When the world seems a dismal place, I like to think about what we can learn from the trees. The value of silently observing the world as it changes around you. The deep quiet of solitude, loneliness, the simple act of standing witness to the passage of time. Being committed to just one thing: growth. Living in a way that does good for the world; and knowing that even the sentinels of the forest are not without their flaws. For even the most resplendent tree casts a shadow upon the ground that keeps the ferns from growing.That it is impossible to live a life that is devoid of harming others, but, tandemly, simply because something is impossible doesn’t preclude it from being worthy of our attention, our efforts.

After all, it was impossible for man to reach beyond our little blue dot and sail to the mood. It was impossible right up to the moment that we decided to test our hypothesis of impossibility. In doing so we move the bar just that much further, set a new impossible, a vast horizon on which we can build and destroy dreams so grand, that from here, their greatness makes them all but invisible.

When I look at the world and see all the greed and indifference, the shame and confusion, I think of the trees. The old giants.

I like to imagine a stand of soaring pine trees which no man has ever seen. Trees that took root before this great democratic experiment, before you, before me, before anyone you’ve ever had the slightest possibility of knowing came into being. When I look at the trees, not the tame, domesticated blooms that adorn our city street and front lawns, but the wild ineffable misers who live out their lives – which are so inexpressibly different from our own –  away from the prying eyes of humans. When I think of these trees – it feels like the greatest form of hubris that we should endeavor to write our stories on their skin. 

These trees don’t strive to have their names written in the pages of our history books. Instead, they are the pages of our history books, the pages of nearly every human story, the true and the tabloid, the sweeping epic and the stereo installation manual. And if tomorrow, we are called upon by some desire within ourselves to cut these giants down; to bring their soaring-ever-reaching limbs crashing down to earth, they will not complain, but simply acquiesce to our desires and we will have lost something grand and powerful, and very nearly the closest thing we have on this planet to the divine. We will have lost a teacher.

For the trees know we are small confused mammals with minds that are smaller still. They accept us and our hubris, our carelessness, our ceaseless errors, knowing that these flaws are simply part of our DNA, and they forgive us. And in their silence they hold space for us to learn. To grow not as they do, but in our own way.

The trees teach us that there is an awesome power in growth, in being huge, fat, bursting in our liveliness, and that it does not do to make oneself small. Conversely, they also show us that the notions of who is better and best does nothing but divide us, and that living only to take is not only cruel, but so beyond pointless that only a silly little animal like a human would spend their one fleeting, glorious life in pursuit of this pyrrhic victory. 

I like to look to the trees, and know that one day, all of it, all of you, will be gone, as surely and completely as the silence that stood in your place before you arrived. And then what? Just the trees and the dirt will remain, until one day, they too are swallowed up by the gaping maw of space. And we are, all of us, returned to the star dust from which we came.

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PCT Day 168 – The End

Campsite at approx. PCT mile 2630 on the Holeman Fire Reroute to Canadian Border (mile 2653)

I wake up to leaden grey skies and the knowledge that this is it. Today is our last day on trail. And even though I know this intellectually I somehow don’t feel it, it doesn’t mean anything. Not yet at least. Everything is just, normal. Standard. Starman and I go about our normal morning chores, eating breakfast in the tent to avoid the early morning chill and the damp feel of wet nylon in my hands as I pack away the tent. Like usual, like always, like forever, we are the last ones out of camp. So it goes.

This morning we walk through a forest that seems even sleepier than I am. Only the occasional bird sings out, chattering chipmunks and squirrels remain silent in their burrows while we traipse through the damp understory, brushing dew from the grass and soaking our shoes. The clouds are a heavy grey blanket overhead, lulling the world into nap time. Pushing down all the sounds into the loamy green earth. It is time to sleep, for myself, for this land, for the season. This summer of interminable walking has somehow come to an end and fall has arrived seemingly overnight. Surprising. Though on the climbs my body lets me know that it is ready to be done, far more than my wanderlust mind will naturally consent to. My legs are strained with fatigue, each sinew crying out for the one thing I have withheld for all these months. Rest rest rest. Time to recover, time to be still, time to use my body in new ways to accomplish new things. But not quite yet. We still have 20 miles to go.

Our trail winds down into a low valley before beginning a long climb back out. Starman says he’s going to put in his audio book and I joke that he should be spending today in quiet contemplation of all that we have done this summer. He turns to me surprised. “Really?” I don’t know. It feels like what I should be doing, even though my brain cannot seem to muster any sort of profound emotional catharsis. This is simply my morning commute, eating snacks in the dirt is my lunch hour, our tent has become my home. All of it tangled up in such normalcy that I find I don’t have much novelty to emote towards. Humans are such supremely adaptable creatures, for good and bad. We can adapt to suffering and to great comfort, to wearing shorts in all weather and to climate controlled office cubicles. And I, and we, have adapted to this life outdoors. To the rigors of a nomadic life within the constraints of following a trail to Canada. And in the way that distance mutes the extremes of the past, I reflect on our five month hike and feel as though it were lived by someone else. Was that really me who hiked across the desert in 104 degree heat and spent an afternoon huddling under I-10? Me who minced terrified across snow fields? Subsisted on potato chips and American cheese? Dug and pooped in innumerable catholes? Or maybe I have simply come into being in the space between this step and the last, fully formed and filled with a stranger’s memories. I do not have the faintest comprehension of recollection, sometimes my life barely feels real.

Then ten miles from the border the weight of this entire rediculous thing becomes so undeniably real that I am reduced to tears. Though I cannot tell you exactly why or what I am feeling. Proud. Sad. Happy. Overwhelmed. Yes, overwhelmed is as close as words can get. What have we done? What have we failed to do? Am I any different today than I was 168 days ago when I stood at the Mexican border and looked north with a plan and hope and not the slightest clue of what was to come? In some ways yes, I have undeniably changed—though I imagine that these changes will only be visible with the distance of time and the space during which I can observe what new ideas will stick to my person and become me and which ideas will be discarded. Because in many ways I am not all that different today than I was when I started this hike.

There is a great fallacy within the narrative of adventure travel. One than tells us that travel will invariably cause dramatic change. We want to believe that a thru hike is the onus with which one completely alters their life. However, many or most of us who have undetaken a long hike will return to the lives, people, and cities that we came from. The details may change, but the essence will remain largely the same. Our experiences will manifest themselves in more subtle ways, ways that don’t make for bestselling novels. This story of city girl gone wild and then returned is far less romantic than what we want to believe. Honestly may be a great many things but it is rarely sexy. Of course the narrative of wilderness escape is not without it’s truth. Though from what I have seen, the people who are prone to eschew societal norms in favor of a life of adventure are those whose grasp on the status quo was already tenuous. Those with the fewest societal attachments and a nomadic personality before the trail are the selfsame people who may choose to relinquish their hold on normal forever. It certainly makes for a better story. But these people are not the majority, and they are certainly not me.

Four miles to the border and the clouds shatter apart, giving way to streams of sunlight and warmth. It is quite literally all down hill from here and I wonder if we will be lucky enough to reach the northern terminus beneath the sun. If I have leaned to do anything during the course of the hike it is to walk fast, letting my legs carry me quickly onwards. The bushes alongside the trail become a blur of greens capped with blooming oranges, reds, and yellows. But I barely see the colors, I barely register any of it until I see the clear-cut which demarcates the border. Etched razor straight across the land, this human marker of possession. The silly need to tell a handful of smelly hikers and unknowing animals that this right here is the border between two friendly nations. But behind the rediculous nationalistic meaning this strip of barren land tells me something else—we are almost there.

And isn’t it funny how nothing is ever like you expect it to be. The border clear-cut leads my eyes into the valley where the northern terminus must sit. Within 100 meters I can see the monument through the trees, not in a single great reveal but in a questioning “I think that’s it” squinting. And then we really are there. It’s right in front of us and I turn and hold onto Starman for a while and cry into his shoulder for only a few moments, my emotional depth having been exercised some hours before. Still, this does not diminish the astonishment that we’ve really done it; the knowledge that the odds were never really in our favor means that I never let myself fully imagine this moment. The unflattering truth is that I’ve always leaned towards being pessimistic and right over optimistic and disappointed. But today I am gloriously wrong and I love everything about it.

We are the only ones at the monument. And isn’t that fitting. Though the trail register reveals that today dozens of hikers have come before us and that some will certainly finish after, for now it is just us. For thousands of miles and many months it has been Starman and myself. How apt that we should arrive at the finish in the same way. Wide eyed and a little bemused with no one to stand witness besides ourselves. We spend an hour taking pictures, funny ones, happy ones, cute ones, until we can’t think of what else to do. I look to Starman and say “think about anything you want to get a picture of now because we’re probably never coming back here.” And in the resounding truth crater of that statement we are left dumb, staring at each other and not knowing what else to do.

When finally there are no more pictures to be taken and the trail register has been read and signed we shoulder our packs one last time. Leaving the little clearing and walking north into the forest, as it had been since the beginning, as it continued to be until the very end, just the two of us.

Thank you!

First and most importantly thank you to Starman, my boyfriend and hiking partner. Thank you for being our navigator, finding the most fun alternates, and giving me your pineapple gummy bears. This trip would not have been the same without you. I am so very proud of you and love you more than I can say.

Next, thank you to my parents for sending our resupply boxes, being endlessly supportive, and sending extra gluten free snacks and birthday cake in the mail. To Ian for sending our Washington boxes and letting us use your house as a mail drop, and never once complaining. You are so very appreciated.

Thank you to the Miller family – Carol, Bob, and Kyle for coming to visit us on trail. As well as Victor, Mac, Julie, Mihai, Angel, Patient, Iceman, Garbo and Connor, Aaron, Andrea, Mike and Joyce, for either coming out to see us or letting us crash at your place or giving us rides. It was always a joy to see your clean and shining faces.

Thank you to everyone who contributed financially to this blog via my Tip Jar —your support made this hike all the more feasible and I will always appreciate those who fund the content they enjoy. You all made me feel like a real writer. To those who left toughtful comments and questions, I read every single message and even though I didn’t always have a chance to reply, I was grateful for every one. And finally thank you to everyone who read this blog, be it once or every single post. Your support did, and continues to, mean a lot.

What’s Next for Me?

Right after the trail I’ll be traveling for a month. Before the trail I spent two years working multiple jobs in order to save money for this trip. And I am lucky enough to have a little extra in order to afford some additional travel. First I’ll be heading to Colorado for a week to visit family and relax. Then, in October I’ll be traveling to Thailand for three weeks with my sister and a good friend from school. I plan to do some writing about these adventures, so stay tuned!

After Thailand I’ll be moving to Seattle! One of the things I’m looking forward to most after the trail is fully relocating to Seattle. It is a city I have loved for a long time and I am thrilled to finally get the chance to live there. I will be looking for work, ideally in a creative capacity within the outdoor industry so if you have any contacts or are maybe even hiring yourself please reach out.

What’s Next for Wild Country Found?

Now that the PCT is over I’m going to be posting on this blog somewhat less frequently—I’ll try and aim for once a week when I’m traveling or have exciting adventures to share. You can always follow me over on Instagram at KayMKieffer or by searching “Kara on the Outside.” I post on Instagram far more frequently than on this blog, making it an excellent place to keep up with what I’m doing. However if you’d like to see anything specific on this site please reach out and let me know.

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PCT Day 167 – Ash and the Mad Baker

Brush Creek (mile 2609) to campsite at approx. PCT mile 2630 on the Holeman Fire Reroute

I wake to find that the rain from the night previous has ceased and that I have developed a hole in the top of my right shoe. Almost done, we’re almost done I think as we pack up under a watery blue sky which is threatening and occasionally delivering rain. Climbing up towards Glacier and then down towards bHarts Pass the wind threatens to blow away my hard won body heat, and nearly succeeds on the descents. Even as the sun reaches it’s zenith overhead the temperatures continue to drop, our only protection is when the trail switches to the leeward side of the ridge. Here the weak sunlight soaks into my dark rain jacket, warming me as I scurry down down down to the road at Harts Pass and our next snack break. As to the rangers warning the weather is changing, the days rapidly growing cooler, and I know that we are almost done. And, somewhat more remarkably, I am ready for us to be done.

On one of these protected ridges I pull over on the trail to let an uphill hiker pass me. He asks if I’m a PCT thru hiker, and when I tell him I am he jokes that he’s the one who should be moving over. The man’s name is Ash and he looks as though his style icon is Johnny Depp a la “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Ash lives in the quaint town of Winthrop on the eastern side of the Cascades. He was a smoke jumper for 15 years and says he feels partially responsible for the four large fires burning within 50 miles of where we’re currently standing. Going on to elaborate that back in his day the marching orders were to get fires out as quickly as possible, which has lead to unchecked deadfall and undergrowth cluttering. It seems a bit harsh to assume much guilt for his part in what was, at the time, a national mandate. Ash then asks me if I’d like an apple. With our accelerated pace through this section I’m in no short supply of food, however fresh fruit is like gold on the trail and I eagerly accept. From the depths of his old external frame bag he pulls the largest honey crisp apple I have ever seen. I take it gratefully, with nearly numb hands holding the apple as though it were the most precious egg, and thanking him profusely. He says he didn’t know he’d be seeing so many hikers and he wishes he had more to offer. Though of course the apple and conversation is more than appreciated or expected and I tell him as such. I have Starman stow the apple in my bag and we rush down the hill, all the more eager now for our snack break.

However, Ash is not to be the last kind stranger of the day. At Harts Pass we see Beehive, Spice Man, Crain Nip, Feather, and Slug sitting in lawn chairs wrapped in blankets. Trail magic! Twice in one day! This time at the hands of a man who I come to know only as The Mad Baker. A smiling giant of a man who lounges near his bright blue truck in shorts and a zip up cotton hoodie while chatting to the gathered hikers—all of us decked out in puffy jackets and clutching the provided blankets like lifejackets. He has sodas, candy, a miscellaneous supply of snack foods, and my absolute favorite – V8. I sit contentedly and listen to The Mad Baker talk about the places he’s done trail magic this year. Starting at Crater Lake and working his way north, having met some of the hikers present multiple times. It is how he’s choosing to spend his retirement. What a treasure. What an absolute kindness.

When I can no longer pretend that I am not shivering, and the sun has made a valiant effort at chasing away the clouds, we pack up to leave. Climbing along a sun drenched hill ripe with fall colors, and passing into the Pasayten Wilderness—the last wilderness of the whole hike. Standing atop the ridge in the clear bright blue center of a donut with dark clouds on all sides, a rainbow greets us as we drop into the next valley. A real deal bona fide rainbow, I can hardly believe it. Spanning from wall to wall right across the trail, welcoming us onwards. Welcome to the home stretch it seems to say, and in thinking about that, about the home stretch, well I can hardly believe that either.

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PCT Day 166 – A Four Pass Day

Rainy Pass (mile 2591) to Brush Creek (mile 2609)

We leave Rainy Pass under patchwork blue skies which have clouded over into a bubbling grey quilt by the time we reach the top of the first climb. This far north the tree line has dropped to 6,000 feet, affording us an unimpeded view from the top of Cutthroat Pass. Rock spires crowd the ridgelines, black against tan, looking like peaking waves made stone. All the more imposing for the heavy clouds that push to the horizon and begin to sprinkle the lightest rain as we descend and then climb again towards Methow Pass. It would seem that the ominous weather forecast we received from the USFS ranger was correct. Falling temperatures and rain which may turn to snow at higher elevations are quickly approaching, the sort of weather that can slam shut the season. I’m all the more grateful we are so close to the finish.

With each pass the wind is a little more wild, the clouds heavier and darker. By mid afternoon it feels almost like nightfall. Yet despite this, I find myself lingering at the top of each pass, the more impressive views stacking up behind me rather than ahead. Though, with less than 60 miles left until we reach Manning Park in British Columbia, perhaps there is no better metaphor made physical.

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PCT Day 165 – Impassable is Just Another Word for Adventure

Stehekin (mile 2572) to Rainy Pass 2591

Under low grey skies a bus full of hikers rumbles away from the Stehekin Bakery, heading up valley and back to the PCT. We are less than 100 miles from the finish line and people joke about how it would feel to be heading southbound, less than 100 miles in. What we all felt like in Julian, 77 miles into the desert hobbling into town on Bambi legs. The idea of this feels so completely overwhelming, the incomprehensibly rediculous task of walking 2,650 miles, that I can not think about it. After walking all this way, the idea of doing it again still feels somewhat impossible, too huge, too enormous, too absurd. My heart is a frantic bird throwing itself against the cage of my chest, as though only now am I beginning to understand the scope of what we’ve done. Everyone is silent for a long moment.

And then the conversation moves on, like it always will and the bus arrives at the trail head. A dozen hikers bumble from the bus, all tight legs and heavy packs who disperse up the trail in small groups. Bathroom, trekking poles, check all the small things, and then it’s time to walk.

Right of the bat we have a choice. We could take the PCT from the trailhead. Or we can bushwhack along an old dirt road which washed out in 2003 and has been left unrepaired since then, being deemed impassable. They reconnect in five miles, but the second option shaves off 1,000 feet of gain and probably will require some scrambling—potentially above a river. Of course, we choose option two. I long since made the decision to view this hike as an adventure in which I primarily travel on the PCT, instead of a challenge in which the goal was to adhere to the trail as strictly as possible. People do both, and both are fine styles in which to hike the trail, but I definitely alighn more with the former. When there is a more exciting experience to be had at the end of a comparable alternate, you can bet I’ll take the alternate. It’s more interesting to me, it’s more fun, more engrossing. Hiking over tricky terrain or having to navigate is more engaging than just cruising down the trail efficiently. Honestly most of our self designed detours take as long or longer than just sticking to the trail, but Starman is an avid map reader and he can spot spot some really cool stuff.

Within two miles we are scrambling over small ledges along the shores of a thrilling blue river. I constantly scout above me, looking for places where we could climb up to flatter terrain should we get cliffed out. Luckily it never comes to this. As often as we are handing packs down ledges as we down climb grippy grey rock, we are pushing forward heads bent into a wall of green saplings. And because you can never assume yourself to be the most rediculous person vicinity while on a thru hike, we look behind us to find six other hikers. Safety in numbers, if nothing else.

During this laborious diversion we see a cougar print, climb down some small ledges, and get some good scratches while wading through small trees and thick undergrowth. It’s silly and far slower than the trail, forcing me to really focus on what I’m doing, to really engage. It’s nice to be so connected with what you’re doing.

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PCT Day 164 – Sweet Baby Jeezu, the Last Nero

Cloudy Pass Junction (mile 2552, plus 6 miles to Hart Lake on the Holden fire alternate) to Stehekin (mile 2572 via Holden fire alternate and Stehekin ferry)

Starman and I are standing bemused at the registrar’s desk in Holden, WA – a small Lutheran retreat nestled in a valley above Lake Chalan, which has generously consented to allow hikers to detour through their resort in order to accommodate the Bannock Lake Fire Detour. The kindly woman behind the desk informs us in her gently lilting English accent that laundry is free. We are confused. But laundry is never free. Five months into the trail there are a few things I have learned and one of them is that laundry is never free. Except, apparently, in Holden where dreams do come true.

Showered and laundered we board the bumping meandering shuttle bus to Lucerne where we board the ferry to Stehekin—our last nero on the trail. Our last resupply package, headlamp charging station, town meal. Less than 100 miles to Manning Park, British Columbia. In a few days we will be crossing the border into Canada on foot, what an absurd thing to have done. We while away the afternoon sitting on the banks of Lake Chalan, chatting with other hikers, eating baked goods from the Stehekin Bakery, and staring across the blue waters of this great narrow lake. There is an intangible feeling in the air, electricity mixed with a coming sense of loss, an end and a celebration all wrapped into one confusing bundle of emotions. The hikers here, us here, there is a feeling that we’re going to make it. With all the odds against us and the miles between here and Mexico it finally seems possible that we might just make it to Canada.

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PCT Day 163 – Fire Plans

Dolly Vista Trail Camp (2532) to Cloudy Pass Junction (mile 2552, plus 6 miles to Hart Lake on the Holden Fire)

The scent of fire smoke wafts up from the valley floor rousing me from sleep. Outside the tent I can see small flares burning in the dark, the occasional tree igniting then burning a harsh orange so at odds with the blue night.

Later, when Starman’s alarm chimes time to hike we find that we are once again, perhaps forever and always, the last people in camp. Our plan to camp on this ridge in an effort to see how the fires are developing has proven moot. An ugly brown orange purple smoke blankets the hills and valleys below us, catching the first rays from the rising sun. There is no way for us to know what is happening, though somewhat comically the largest fire burning on Flower Dome is far enough from the trail that we need not worry about it. However, the small whisps of smoke that could be seen burning along Middle Ridge are right above the trail. Probably. But of course now we can’t tell, so it’s time to hike. Hike right down into the smokey mess.

During the nine mile descent towards the Suiattle River we discuss what we can or could or should do if the fire is too close to the trail. Our discussion turns round and round with no new information and no way to gain any more. If we need to bail we could take a side trail down to a remote campground where there might be cars who could take us the roughly 30 miles to highway 20, maybe. But then we’d be a days worth of hitching from our passports and resupply box. So that’s not good, but neither is walking towards an active forest fire. Maybe there will be a ranger at the bridge with information. But maybe they don’t no yet if nobody has reported this. But maybe. But maybe not. Around and around we go as the trail takes us down to the Suiattle River. It’s a maddening frustrating pattern of discussion with no way out except silence or a change of topic.

At the bridge there is no ranger, but there is a note from Road Runner and Autopilot saying they’ve got no new news. Well, that’s better than nothing but certainly less than ideal. Then, the thing we’ve all been waiting for happens! A southbounder! Then another! Both of whom respond “what fire?” And that’s going to have to be good enough. With smoke itching my throat we begin a 4,000 foot climb towards Cloudy Pass, never seeing or hearing the fire that we assume to be on the ridge we’re climbing. This is literally the best we could have hoped for, as the easiest way out is through.

I am tired, more from the hours of circular discussion and worry than from the climb. Having grown so accustomed to the era of instant Google information it feels bizzare to be thrust backwards to a time where I cannot learn things in an instant. As so many of these moments have done, this experience gives me great respect for those who hiked this trail 20 or even 50 years ago when the national scenic trail system was proposed.

We crest Cloudy Pass via a convoluted and steep few miles. And as if Washington is looking to soothe us after a morning of stress, she puts on her best face for us. Mountains unlike any I have ever seen glow pink as the sinking sun shoots through the smoke overhead. Rivers drop thousands of feet in a series of fanning waterfalls to become turquoise lakes nestled in deep valleys. This section has been everything I wanted Washington to be, and inexpressibly more.

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PCT Day 162 – A Brutal sort of Beauty

Campsite 2515 to campsite at mile Dolly Vista Trail Camp (2532)

The tent is covered in cold condensation when I wake. Our little camp hidden next to a rushing creek is well secluded from the morning sun whose rays cannot penetrate the chill. Even after an unusually long pack up time, during which we work to delay the inevitable moment when we must leave our warm bubble and venture outside, it is still cold. I wait until the absolute last minute before stripping off my puffy jacket, packing it away in a hurry and starting to hike before l can fully appreciate how cold my arms are.

However, immediately the trail begins to climb. Winding through thick forests below the massive jagged shoulders of Glacier Peak. Below the trees roll towards a precipice and drop sharply from view, above they cede to the granite and snow and sky. The world is two toned, green on bottom, grey blue on top. Smoke from wildfires has blown in on the morning breeze, dulling our views and smudging the pale peaks into the sky. We climb steeply up and over our first ridge of the day on trail that tilts towards the valley floor as though wishing us to slide right off and down into the dark forest. Our first climb deposits us at a small creek. Rushing over bright green moss and achingly cold against my fingers as I filter water. With sudden ferocity the sun blasts from around the ridge, flooding the creek with light and vaporizing morning dew instantaneously into humidity.

We climb again. And again. Up towards the sky where the trees cannot grow and even the green grass is now tinged with the yellow of oncoming fall. From on high the skyline in all directions is crowded with broken grey teeth of mountains. We are nothing more than small mammals standing in the center of a giant earthen maw waiting to snap closed and swallow us whole. The land here is beautiful in a way that rings of eons of cold, ice, and the grinding of rock and water until the earth is worn away into shattered spires and deep chasms.

With no where left to go we drop into one of these chasms. Winding down down down to a river of milky white which carries the smallest bits of mountain down towards the sea in the slow unrelenting manner that it has always shaped this land. And when there is no more down to be had we again look briefly towards the sky and climb into the forest on a trail that marches this way and that. Switchbacking relentlessly until time and distance fall out of relation to each other. The river grows smaller and smaller below us, but the sky is ever as big, the trees ever as grand, and looking up only serves to tell us that we have a long way to go. So I chose not to look, only to walk with slow measured steps until the ground tilts the other way at last. And my legs unspool underneath me. I am a rag doll, a puppet with floppy limbs and joints made of string ambling along the downhill like learning to walk again. Finally coming to rest beside a happy steam rushing down in the warm afternoon air, a joyous burbling sound. Food and drink, simple sweet pleasure before the going.

It hurts to move again, as it almost always does. But I prod myself to my feet, heading towards the horizon where a plume of white mars the great blue sky. What is that now? With so many kinds of light trapped in deep valleys or else ricocheting from rock and snow, what is that smear which eats away at the sky?

A fire. A new one by the looks of it. With another angry friend burning nearby. We stand with Autopilot and Roadrunner for a long time looking at maps and compass trying to decipher the squiggles of topography and if that fire is burning right in our path. The plan to hike down into another dark valley is put on hold and in the end seven of us huddle on a ridge top campsite and watch the fire spread across the hillside. Two valleys over and yet no airplanes. Does anybody other than us know about this fire? Who is there to relay this information to the proper parties if not us, so removed from contact with the outside world as we are now?

The setting sun darkens the sky, concealing the jagged teeth of mountains that surround us on all sides. What to do, what to do, what to do. Asking is all we can do as bright red flares from across the valley, piercing through the smoke which we can see but not yet smell. It is beautiful in its own brutal way.