Day 201

Day 201 (pct bonus day): 28? Miles

We slept in a little bit today and got 7 hours of sleep after getting 6 hours or less for at least the last week but really most of Washington. To honor tradition, hammer and I slept in again lsat when we planned on getting up. We didn’t want to break tradition on the last day on trail.

We had a couple miles back to Holman Pass and then hopped of the PCT and onto the PNT. We knew it was gonna be less maintained and a more rugged trail and it was. There was a good amount of blowdowns in the first 6 or so miles which had us moving pretty slow. And after that the climbing was pretty tough. It wasn’t graded like the PCT so it was pretty steep. Washington was pretty tough but I was still worried that I’ve had it too good for too long out here and going back to the AT was gonna be a shock when I do. But today was a good reminder that I was right and the climbing can be so much worse than it was on the PCT. The biting flies were also terrible today.

Late in the day I saw a cut high up on a mountain beside us and joked that that was our trail. After looking at it for a little longer I realized it actually was out trail. It was nearly straight up over a 1,000 feet and felt a little bit crazy. Hammer declared “This is such a stupid fucking trail” halfway up. And basically the whole way up I was just laughing at how steep it was compared to what we’ve been doing.

We got close to the parking lot right around 10:30 when we were supposed to get picked up. I saw this sign and thought it had to be right by the parking lot so I wanted to celebrate. Why would they put it far away? We lost the trail immediately after this. We then realized that we probably had to Ford the river. We looked around a little farther for a bridge before giving up before we decided we have to Ford. As we were looking around for the trail I was climbing down a ledge by using a tree. I put my hand less than an inch from a large bees nest in the tree. That could’ve been an extremely poor way to get off the PCT.

I thought we were gonna ride the river bank back to where the trail led down to it and cross there but hammer said “we gotta go” and just hopped in so we followed. It was a little chilly and swift but not too bad. I wasn’t too upset since I knew I could take off my wet shoes and socks on the car.

But once we got across the river we got lost for a solid 15 minutes before we could find the parking lot. It was a high stress situation to say the least. I was pretty angry and hammer was about ready to explode.

But all turned out well and our man Gary showed up with dr pepper and little caesars pizzas. Heaven on earth.

Song of the day: ho hey-lumineers