Day 200

Day 200 (pct 90): 25 miles + 15 bonus miles

PCT: 5/26/2021-7/24/2021

We woke up as men on a mission. We had to do 25 miles to the Canadian border and then turn around and do 30 miles backward to the nearest road in the US. Normally you could walk roughly 10 miles into Canada to a road there but with the borders being closed that’s not an option. Basically all day I was just thinking about how it was going to be a 55 mile day. We planned on doing this nonstop cause we had to get back to the road early before our ride left.

It was really rocky all day which limited the ability to go really fast, especially with my painful foot. There was also some tough climbing early on but I was justifying it by telling myself we would get to do it downhill on the way back.

We got to the terminus around 4:30. When I got there I felt a little bit of relief but not really
joy. I was mostly thinking about going 30 miles backwards and staying on schedule. I turned on my sat phone and got some messages from our man, Gary. Hammer and I met him at white pass in Washington and he said he could pick us up when we finished by the 25th. He texted my sat phone that they closed the road 30 miles back so we could either have to go back 60 miles to the next road or take some side trails for roughly 42 miles to a road that was still open. This was a historic vibe check. We knew that the side trails weren’t the PCT so they would be a little rougher but we decided to go with that option.

We hung out at the terminus for a while and checked out the log book. Not sure on the exact number but the 3 of us were top 10 finishers to thru hike the PCT this year. And we were the first ones to finish after Tim Olson.

After having a few beers at the border and taking a dump in Canada it was time to PUT IT IN REVERSE TERRY! I started the 15 mile hike back where we were gonna camp for the night. I was feeling pretty good for a while and was kinda upset we didn’t have to do a 55 mile day anymore but around 10 I started to feel pretty tired along with hammer and terminator. We started talking less and were all slipping on the rocks a lot.

Hammer took a pretty bad fall close to a ledge but managed to not slide down the side of the mountain.

A few miles before camp, and 70% up a 1,000 foot climb we stopped for a “2 minute break.” We sat there for probably 10 minutes and could have all fallen asleep sitting on the trail right there even though we were on the ledge with a huge drop off. I knew nobody wanted to get up and move so I started bumping some tunes and got the boys buzzing again. We ended up cruising into camp around 12 feeling good and jamming out to last Friday night by Katy perry. Terminator was a little alarmed how hammer and I knew the first verse perfectly. Just some guys being dudes

Song of the day: all eyes on me-Bo Burnham + last Friday night-Katy perry