Maybe we’re dragging a bit from the number of days we’ve been on the trail. Maybe they’re getting faster getting ready in the morning. Maybe Bunny’s brainwashing me to sleep in. Maybe it’s just total fear to wake Bunny up. Whatever the case is, they did it again. Struggles and Charcoal B beat us out of camp again. Or, we just have to own that we are not true thru hikers and are, gasp, section hikers.
To reduce our lag time behind them on the trail, we chose to skip some necessary steps in packing up and hitting the trail. God forbid, coffee was not one of the steps we skipped. Eating is also required. You can’t skip getting dressed or packing up. The only semi-optional step in getting ready is digging a hole. I was a Boy Scout who went to summer camp. I learned to hold it for up to 6 days at a time. It’s only 32 miles to Manning Park; I’m good to go. Even my sister would hold out for “home field advantage” for up to a few days at a time. When she first got married, she’d come home every day or two to use the same bathroom she had grown accustomed to for the previous 20 years. Once again, Bunny is the weak bowel link.
We had barely traversed our first 2 miles of the day when she started slowing down and complaining about sluggishness today. I braved myself for the imminent stop. I give Bunny credit. When she says she’s gotta go, she doesn’t waste any time. She takes longer to pee than dig a hole and bury it. While I was waiting, I argued with myself for a bit about the prospect of holding out for foreign tariff. I decided there was no time like the present so when Bunny got back, I immediately grabbed the trowel. I made it my goal to be as fast as she. I didn’t even take anything with me to read.
I got down there and discovered a freshly dug hole. Perhaps my wife has finally decided to be nice to me. This helped speed up my process tremendously. I took aim and released. When I was done, I went to throw dirt back in the hole, but saw no evidence of my deed or the accompanying paperwork. It was then that I realized, I had ruined some marmots day. Maybe not today, but sometime, a scared little marmot is going to need his emergency escape route and it’s going to be filled with…let’s just go with filled. Or maybe this is the back door where the little ones have to take the garbage out at night before they can go to bed. Maybe this is why our son was afraid to take the garbage out when he was little—giant poop right outside the back door and we never knew.
It didn’t rain today even though it was cloudy almost all day. We caught up and hiked with Struggles and Charcoal B almost all day. Both of our tents had gotten wet from the overnight rain, so when we stopped for lunch, CB tried to find a sunny spot to dry his out. When I say it didn’t rain today, I merely meant it didn’t rain when Charcoal’s tent was packed away. He rushed to pack it back up at lunch and as soon as he got it put away, the rain stopped. I did my part to hold off the rain by wearing my pack cover all day.
As we got closer to the border, we ran into groups of hikers who were either flipping up to start heading south which requires them to walk the 30 miles from Harts Pass to the monument and back (the USA does not allow hikers to enter from the Canadian side of the border although Canada allows hikers to obtain entry permits into Canada on the PCT). We also ran into several hikers that were finishing up but had not applied for the entry permit to Canada. One of the former group was a young lady whose name rang several bells for us. This was Sassy Pants. We hiked with Sassy and Bear last year on the AT (does anyone seriously need reminding about what to do here?) and with a Canadian, Fancy Pants this year. Ironically, Fancy Pants and Dan did not get permission to enter Canada from the trail even though they are both Canadian citizens.
We also ran into another trio of hikers who flipped up from Northern California so they could make it through WA before an early snow hit. They had taken a few days off because the girl they were hiking with had terrible shin splints. They were taking it easy now, only doing 15 miles a day until she recovered. As we saw her walking around a water stop, I had bad feelings about how successful she’s going to be. Every step looks painful and she needs much more rest, but, possibly her youth and ignorance to how her body works may prevail. (Word to the wise…ignorance only works to youth’s benefit, geriatric hikers like us are always aware of pain and it’s never good for us.)
From looking at our Gut, we can see that today is going to be a harder day than tomorrow, but still not a bad day at all. Today has the most altitude gain so we can call it our last hard day in the US. As we were getting close to the end of the day and starting to think about tomorrow, we received a sign—a rainbow in the valley below us. Even though it wasn’t raining on us, there was some rain behind us. Our biggest concern about tomorrow is just getting across the border before the Canadians finish building the wall they have agreed to pay for.
I also thought of a new rule when hiking in a group. It’s too late to be beneficial to us this year, but this will be most useful when hiking with our old AT tramily through the Sierra next year. Each member of the tramily will be assigned a day where they MUST accept each and every emission of the other members, as their own. This is best for hiking women since most women (my wife excepted) are afraid to fart in anyone’s presence. For example, let’s say Sassy accidentally ingests a bread crumb. From past experience, if she tries to keep the gas in, she will swell up like a Maceys Day Parade balloon. If it’s Good Chip Norris’ emission day, Sassy has the freedom to “let freedom ring” and GCN must claim and accept responsibility (“my bad”) for the sonic boom—even if he’s a half mile ahead (trust me, he’ll be able to hear if it’s a Sassy gluten fart).
As we crossed into the next valley, we could see just one more ridge in front of us. This is the last climb before Canada. We planned on climbing partway up the ridge and camping for the night, if we can find water before then. The trail led across another huge rock slide that allegedly has a seasonal stream in the middle of it. We tried keeping an eye out for it. We couldn’t afford to miss it if we wanted to stop at 12 miles. The camp we are planning to stay at is dry and there’s no more water for another 4 miles after it. CB was leading and found a small trickle beside the trail. We checked our Gut and found out this IS the water source. I was able to use my CNOC bag to collect enough water from the trickle that we all filled up.
Heading up the ridge, we had a choice of a few camps to choose from. We settled on a camp directly across another rock slide where the PCT used to run. The old trail bed could be seen, but it was obvious that it was unstable and had been washed out on multiple times. While we were setting up camp, we heard strange noises coming from the opposite slide area. This is what will be known as “the great marmot/cougar debate of 2019.” There’s a video on YouTube showing a mountain lion making high pitched bird sounds. This is what the other 3 members of our party heard. I heard a marmot calling. We’ll never know for sure. All I know is that I’ve been hearing a cougar everyday of my life for the last 10 years, and she’s never been as high pitched as what we heard on that mountainside.
It was another cold night. I’ll admit that I’m tired of two things on the trail: 1) cold nights, and 2) hearing Bunny complain about the cold nights every day and threatening to quit. We are having gear issues and it’s a bit miserable. If this persists after we make it to Canada and jump back to Oregon, we’ll have to switch out our sleeping system back to our winter setup. Right now we’re camping well above 6000’ and are almost to the Canadian border. In OR, we’ll be 500 miles further south heading south. We will also be camping at lower elevations as well.
As it is, were crawling into all of our clothes, then getting in our liners before getting under our quilts. My two boys are taking the extra precaution of crawling all the way up in my abdomen up to the base of my throat. Between the stretching below and the pressure on my throat, I’m only able to emit high pitched squeals which has everyone else on edge thinking the cougar has come back.
EFG