I woke up with a scare. My mom is back in the hospital with a relapse of her pneumonia and a blood clot in her lungs. My brother called right at 7 which put a scare in me that things may have taken a turn for the worse, but he was just calling to wish me luck on our last section into Canada. He lives in FL and forgot that we were 3 hours different instead of 2. It did help my morning juices to start flowing without the push of coffee.
We should have been awake already, but Bunny refuses to let me touch the phone when we’re in town. It’s her way of ensuring I won’t set an alarm. Since we were up, we decided to head to Three Fingered Jacks for some breakfast. As everyone should be well aware of by now, I make my wife breakfast in bed every morning when we’re hiking. When the waitress brought out our food, she accidentally dropped Bunny’s plate of bacon. She said she’d bring another order right out. I said I’d eat the bacon. I’ve eaten food dropped in much worse situations on the trail. They wouldn’t let me. They did, however, bring an extra piece of bacon for Bunny. Bacon is a close second to M&Ms with Bunny and there was no way she was going to share her boon with me (even with my cooking her breakfast every morning).
Once we were showered, packed, and ready, we headed down the hill to try to hitch a ride up to Mazama. We had topics up a package which had come just a few minutes after we had picked up our food drop from Digit Alice on Monday. It took less than 5 minutes before we had a ride from a worker at Methow Trails who was going as far as Mazama. We talked about the Nordic ski trail system they maintain in the valley—over 120 miles of trails which they groom every night during the season. He was heading up to perform tree work on the trails now.
We got our package of food stuff that we are testing. It was full of bars, drink mixes, and a few meals. It gave us just a little more food than we need to make it to Canada, but it might work out just right. We’ve arranged for our Camingo, Pete, to pick us up on Wednesday. We wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to make this last section and not feel rushed. Digit had sent us the perfect amount for a 5 day section, but we’ve spread it out to 7 to be safe. This shipment will bridge the gap.
It was still another 19 miles back up to Rainy Pass. After chatting with some people in the cafe for a bit (hoping to yogi a ride) we decided to hoof it back on out to the highway. Once again, less than 10 cars passed before we had a ride. This was a family of 4 on an outing to take their oldest son to college at Gonzaga. They were from Portland and were making a short family vacation out of it. They were going to go on a day hike just short of Rainy Pass, but after hearing the story of our adventure, decided to take us all the way up to the pass. I’m sure they were afraid we might just decide to walk with them and keep talking. Their best bet to get rid of us for good was the pass.
For the first couple of miles on the trail, we didn’t see anyone. We thought there would be some people out on such a gorgeous day. Finally, people started trickling down from the top. We saw a group of older people coming down so I started quizzing them about who might be ahead. We had timed our stay in town to give time for Struggles and Charcoal B to catch back up. We kind of figured that they would only be about 4-5 miles ahead of us when we got dropped off at the pass. The first woman I asked said she wasn’t very observant, but the other people in the party paid more attention to details. The guys said they had seen them and that they were a few miles ahead of us.
We relaxed knowing they were for sure in front of us. If they had taken an extra day off in Stehekin, we might not catch up with each other. Not too much longer and we ran into a couple of guys getting water. They looked vaguely familiar to me, but when Bunny walked up, they called her by name. This was Snow Dog and Strider that we had hiked several days with between Bear Lake and Wrightwood. They had similar experiences with weather that we did. They had jumped to Ashland and got into too much snow. Instead of hiking the Oregon Coast Trail, they had just decided to go back home to Arizona for 6 weeks. They need to be in Canada a day before we do.
We let them finish getting their water and took off. Not even two minutes up the trail Bunny said “nuh ha.” I looked up and saw Charcoal B and Struggles sitting on a log. Struggles told us she had heard my voice and was wanting to hide so we could pass (believable). She said they wanted us to get slightly ahead and then they were going to sneak up behind us and surprise us (not believable). I know they wanted us to pass and leave them in peace. Once I told them Pete had agreed to pick them up with us and take them to Vancouver, they warmed up to us.
We spent the next couple hours walking to camp and catching up on last week’s events. The camping spot Bunny and I had picked as the most likely for them to head to today, was, in fact, the one they were heading to. We know them too well for them to hide from us. While we were talking, we accidentally walked past the last water source for at least another 4 miles. It was cool and pleasant enough that we’d be able to make it without shriveling up. When we stopped for a short break, Charcoal gave us the better part of a liter of water. This is the second time we’ve gotten water from them during a days walk. I offered to give him two pounds of something I was carrying to help make up for the loss out of his pack, but he declined.
Coming around a curve, Struggles spotted an animal in the trail, but couldn’t identify it. Bunny and she we’re convinced it was a wolf. I tried to get my camera out and look, but it kept faulting out. I was able to get a short glance and thought it might be a mountain lion. Charcoal B said lynx because they may or may not have seen one a couple days ago. A couple had told us they saw a scared goat ahead—we were all wrong. It was the goat.
Struggles and Bunny are both paranoid when it comes to camping. They both have this fear that we won’t be able to find a spot (which has never happened). Bunny kept spotting tents ahead and to the left right where we were planning on camping. The closer we got, the more those tents started to look like rocks. Then Struggles saw someone sitting in the middle of the camping spot, but they were pretty still. This turned out to be a log. They both tried to give away our spots to inanimate objects just to prove finding a camping spot was problematic.
The only problematic about our campsite was that there was a bag of gear in it. Not a backpack, just a bag. We looked inside and it had a filter, stove, and food. We thought someone might be coming back for it, so we moved on down the hill next to the stream to set up. While we were eating, a couple guys came in and started talking to us. They had come all the way from Stehekin today. They asked us about the bag, but we had no answers.
As we were getting ready for bed, I decided I was going to go up and talk to the two guys. They have been hiking since March and made it through the Sierra…surely, we must know some of the same people. One of the guys, Travis, came down to rinse off in the creek. He asked my name. When I told him, he said we had met. He and Sam had hiked sobo for 5 days from Dunsmuir to Old Station. They were the two guys we had met the morning we left the cabin and tried to pass over Grizzly Peak. We even have their picture on the blog from back then.
In the last couple of weeks, we have met close to 10 people we’ve already met before. We hadn’t stayed in Stehekin because we thought there wouldn’t be anyone we knew coming through. We’ve only got a few days left until Canada, but there are several people we still wonder about from earlier in the year. We know Wolf and Blues Clues did pass each other in southern Washington and that Wolf has already made it to Canada. He’s back down hiking the Sierra now. He will complete the trail this year. Wolf is our age, so we should be capable of finishing. I’m going to go out in a limb an$ say we might have been able to if that was our focus. It’s tough to not get caught up in the testosterone competition on the trail. Bunny keeps me in estrogen patches just for that reason.
EFG