Washington! Harts Pass to Stevens Pass.

We just did our first section in Washington: 154 miles from Harts Pass to Stevens Pass! And just like that, we're already a third done with the state. Mostly, this makes me appreciate how long California is.

I'll begin with our travel to Harts Pass. We wanted to start at the Northern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail and head south. The trail technically ends 9 miles into Canada, but the US doesn't allow hikers to enter the country via the trail (and people complain that our borders are too porous....!). So the best southbounders like us can do is start at Harts Pass, the closest trailhead to the border (it's 30 trail miles south of the boundary). Purists will hike north for 30 miles, tag the border, then turn around and rehike those same 30 miles. We are not purists. We got to Harts Pass and started walking straight south. Border, shmorder.

Getting to Harts Pass was an adventure though! We flew to Seattle and had an amazingly delicious last supper with old DC friend Barb and her lovely husband Russ. The next morning, we started the journey. We took a train (Cascade Line), a bus (Skagit Transit #205), bus (#305), bus (#8 - amazingly kind and helpful driver), all of which got us to the town of Concrete, Washington. Pro tip: don't eat at the grocery store in Sedro-Woolley while waiting for the #8. Hold out for Concrete, as it has an excellent coffee shop. Justin and I, sadly, had filled up on apple fritters and chips from the grocery store and had no room for anything but one final artisan coffee (tea, in my case).

From Concrete, walk out to Route 20, unless you want to take the bus driver up on her offer for you to keep napping while she drives the rest of the route. When you get to Route 20, stick out your thumb and cross your fingers that Emmy is driving by, because she is the coolest hitch ever. Emmy is a grandma who drives a Volvo, makes her own birdhouses, avidly picks up hitchhikers (when her husband is using their shared car, she herself gets around by hitching), used to work for NPR, and has nothing but good things to say about Washington's recent legalization of marijuana. It was a fun ride. Which is good, because it was 2 hours. From the town of Winthrop we got another hitch to Mazama. Then another hitch halfway up the dirt road to Harts Pass. We walked a mile or two, then decided to camp for the night. The next morning, we walked 3-4 miles of the dirt road before a car came along to take us the rest of the way up: another awesome hitch! Grandparents who in retirement had discovered backpacking and were obsessed! By the time they dropped us off, we'd heard all about their hikes in Washington, Montana, and everywhere in between.

Forty-eight hours after we left Berkeley, we finally stood at Harts Pass. It's go time.

Hiking south was disorienting at first. It was like when I moved from the east coast to the west: my internal compass was all whacky. It's confusing for people we pass too: we're clearly serious pct hikers (there are certain give-always that distinguish us from weekenders: lightweight gear, extremely tan skin, dirty girl brand gaiters, Justin's beard... I guess mostly it's the beard). But we were heading the wrong direction! Fortunately, there's a term for this: a "flip-flop." As in: "we did most of California, but got stopped in Belden by the fires, so we flip-flopped up to Harts Pass and are going South now." Then everyone gets it and we do the secret thru hiker handshake. It's a fun thing to say like 15 times a day.

Washington is incredible! The drive to harts pass was one of the most beautiful drives of my life (Sorry, Big Sur) and there is actually snow on the peaks, a nice change from rain-starved California! We felt great about our decision to come up here and do this section.

In the first two days, everyone we passed was raving about this place "Stehekin." We hadn't planned to stop there, since it was only 50 miles from where we started. But as we kept hearing the phrase "amazing bakery" again and again, we knew we had to reconsider. Man was that ever the right decision. Over 18 hours, I bought the following things: carrot cupcake, veggie quiche, ginger cookie, oatmeal raisin cookies (2), loaf of sourdough, cinnamon roll, sticky bun, orange twist, pesto hot pocket, and one slice of strawberry rhubarb pie. I have no regrets.

Beyond the bakery, Stehekin is a cool town! It's only accessible by foot on the PCT or by a four hour boat ride up Lake Chelan, so it's very isolated and beautiful. There are only a few dozen year-round residents and their school had 5 kids - of totally different ages - enrolled in it. I spent a good half day on the trail imagining exactly how I would differentiate my instruction to meet the needs of a 1st, 4th, 6th, 7th, and 11th grader. Ultimate answer: I have a lot of respect for that teacher.

After we left Stehekin, we innocently started hiking south, thinking we would continue to have sandy trail and big mountain vistas. Oh, but the PCT had gaveth for way too long. It was time to taketh away. It started to pour rain. And then a hiker told us we were entering a ~100 mile section that even Scott Williamson - PCT legend who has completed the trail 13 times - claimed to be the most taxing. Tons of elevation change, super overgrown trail (eg wet bushes that ranged from waist to shoulder high that we had to wade through), and seemingly endless "blowdowns" - huge trees that had been blown down and were blocking the trail. One hiker told us he'd stopped counting blowdowns at 100. Another told us there are three things to do at a blowdown: go over it, go under it, or curse at it. We did all three on occasion. Fortunately, we experienced a little trail magic at camp that first rainy night. Five hikers were already at the spot we'd picked out. But fortunately, they had a great campfire going and brought us hot cider as we set up our tent in the rain!! Amazing! One of the hikers was a retired surgeon, who told us about how he met his wife: dropping out of Stanford medical school to protest the Vietnam war and live in the bushes outside the chemistry building, where she was a grad student. True romance.

The next two days were a blur, honestly. It didn't rain, but constantly threatened to. We were totally socked in a cloud, so couldn't really see much. Lots more blowdowns, lots more bushes, and because the air was so wet, nothing ever fully dried. The flip side of this wetness is that the plant life is awesome! It's the most green forest I've ever seen, with moss growing on everything. And there are beautiful - and sometimes huge - mushrooms everywhere! In Stehekin, Justin and I flipped through a book called "mushrooming without fear." As it turns out, we still have fear. But they look delicious. We're not afraid to eat the crap out of the wild huckleberries and blueberries though. An amazing pick-me-up growing all over the trail.

On Tuesday, it poured again all day. Our tenuous dry victory was lost in a nanosecond, as everything became drenched again. Maddy, thank you for rushing me the goretex jacket, it's been a life saver. Also, a mouse chewed two holes in the tent. This was not the best day ever. We pledged we would make it to Skykomish (aka the next town) the next day, no matter what. And that we did, though it was a death march whose highlights include waking up in the dark and not stopping for lunch. But here in Skykomish, it's beautiful blue skies! We spent today drying everything out in a parking lot. We also picked up a care package from my Mom (dried mango, yes!!) and ate jalapeño poppers. It's been a good day.

Hodgepodge section:
-There are supposedly wolverines in Harts Pass, but all we saw was marmots.
-Winthrop, WA is a very cool town with an "old west" vibe.
-There is a six-year-old doing the PCT this year. His name is "Buddy Backpacker" and he did the AT last year. He plans to do the Continental Divide Trail next summer and be the youngest ever Triple Crowner. He's easily the most known thru hiker on the trail this season. He's doing it with his parents, who also homeschool him on the way. He was near us in the desert and Sierra and then also flipped to WA, so we just saw him again.
-This doesn't sound so cool now that I've explained Buddy Backpacker, but ... I hit the one thousand mile mark!!!! Currently at 1054!
-HUGE thank you to Lauren T. - my Wharton friend and future roommate! She battled the SF real estate market on our behalf and came out victorious. Noe Valley, here we come! Lauren, thank you SO much for taking care of this so I can stay on trail. You are amazing!!

Captions. Please note, I didn't take any pictures when it rained, so this is a slightly biased visual take on WA.
1. Waiting for the #8 Skagit Transit in Sedro-Woolley.
2. View from our tent in Stehekin! Lake Chelan is Americas third deepest lake.
3. Date night in Stehekin!
4. Some of the bounty from the Bakery.
5. We've become addicted to sauce packets and steal them whenever and however possible. Look at that variety!
6. Second best toilet on the trail (after Crabtree Meadows in Sequoia NP). This one is at the North Fork Campsite in North Cascades NP.
7. Getting to be fall!
8. Plant life growing on a mushroom growing on a tree. Stuff grows everywhere here. We're worried that if we stop too long, moss will start growing on our faces.
9 & 10. Lotsa green!
11. I took off my gore tex hood for a minute!!
12. That's a lot of switchbacks for an ~8 mile section.
13. Cool creek!
14. Lunchtime!
15. 1000 miles!
16. Blue sky from the pre-Stehekin days.
17. Looking like real thru hikers.
18. Busted up bridge. Washington is for real. Lots of evidence of landslides, windstorms, floods, etc.
19. Classic blowdowns.
20. Happiness is...