Today was our last ‘full’ day of hiking! We we hike 6 miles to the finish tomorrow and then hike 8ish miles from the terminus to Manning Park, the nearest road access–this amounts to a 15 mile day, so today is our last full 25+ mile day. It doesn’t feel real.
Today was our last ‘full’ day of hiking! We we hike 6 miles to the finish tomorrow and then hike 8ish miles from the terminus to Manning Park, the nearest road access–this amounts to a 15 mile day, so today is our last full 25+ mile day. It doesn’t feel real.
We had a chilly night last night and awoke to a chilly morning. Wolf Bird, Tofu, and I put on our layers and set out by about 7am. We only hiked a few miles to Hart’s Pass before stopping for a brief break. Hart’s Pass is the last road access before the northern terminus, but due to wildfires spreading last night the road has now been closed. There is a campground where the road meets the PCT which means there are pit toilets here. So, we stopped to take advantage of the real toilets. We also discovered someone had left trail magic here last night and there was some leftover—we each grabbed a bottle of Gatorade. It was nice and cold!
We set out once again and were lucky to have beautiful views of the surrounding mountains throughout the crisp morning. We kept joking, ‘I wonder if we are looking at Canada right now’ since it is impossible to tell where the actual border is from afar.
We’ve been passing a fair amount of hikers heading the opposite direction (south). These people have ‘tagged’ the border and are hiking back to Hart’s Pass rather than continuing the 8 miles north into Canada. There are various reasons someone would backtrack like this–mostly if they have a DUI or some other crime that prevented them from being allowed into Canada, or if they didn’t renew their passport in time. These people thus have to hike the 30 miles from Hart’s Pass to the border twice! But with the closure of Hart’s Pass last night, now they will have to continue hiking south another 25 miles or so to the next road at Rainy Pass. I was not envious of their backtracking–once I reach the border I imagine I will lose all motivation to re-hike the section I just completed.
One of the groups of hikers we passed heading South was Tinker Toy and Marco Polo, an older couple. We asked how they were and they said they were stressed with the closure. We asked if they needed anything, extra food or water and Marco Polo (the guy) said thanks but they were fine. We asked if they were sure and Tinker Toy told us they definitely needed food! They hadn’t allotted enough food to take them beyond Hart’s Pass–now that they’d have to walk 25 miles further to the next open road they weren’t sure they’d have enough food. We were glad she said so–I think Marco Polo was being polite when he said no. Wolf Bird and I dug through our packs and gave them some meals and bars to hopefully get them through and encouraged them to ask other hikers they pass as I’m sure everyone would be happy to help.
I was pretty surprised that the Forest Service didn’t have signs at the border to alert hikers of the potential for trail closure ahead of time or really any way to help hikers who now would have to walk an extra 30 miles. We later heard that the Forest Service did start running shuttles from the closed road at Hart’s Pass so people didn’t have to walk the extra miles, but they didn’t alert hikers as to the schedule of the shuttles. It’s great that our PCT thru-hiking community is so tight knit that I know no hiker would go hungry, but I do think the Forest Service could have done better so as to not put hikers in this somewhat dangerous situation.
Hiking was beautiful today and it felt nice walking in the warm sun since the air was cool. We stopped for lunch with Tofu by a stream (this section was surprisingly dry) and chatted with some other hikers as they also took breaks. Everything felt so surreal–that this was our last lunch of the trail, that this time tomorrow we would be done. It is crazy to think about and I tried my best to soak up the peace and beauty of the day.
We hiked along the side of some beautiful mountains throughout the afternoon. Some had steep dropoffs to our left and I had to walk slowly and more carefully through them as I was a little scared with the trail partially eroding! We had decided to do a slightly shorter day today so we’d have 6 miles to the border tomorrow rather than 3 miles. We wanted to have a bit longer to give the sun time to warm us up so we wouldn’t get too cold hanging out once we arrived at the terminus. By about 530 or 6pm we descended off the ridgeline to Hopkins Lake, where we would camp for the night. We could see the lake from above and it was completely in the shadow of the surrounding mountains. It looked quite chilly! As sad as it is to be almost done, I am grateful that we are finishing before it gets any colder and before it starts snowing.
We arrived at the lake and it was chilly as we expected. Wolf Bird and I arrived slightly before Tofu and were shocked to hear someone calling out ‘Is that Wolf Bird and Sherpa?’ as we were looking around for a campsite. We walked to where the voice came from and discovered Murphy’s Law and his girlfriend in his tent! We hiked with him for a bit in the Sierra and also ran into him in Sierra City and Ashland. He told us that he’d already gone and tagged the border and was hiking south back to his car which he left where we camped last night (he hadn’t renewed his passport in time so he couldn’t enter Canada). His girlfriend had joined him for this last section. It was such a treat seeing a familiar face before finishing! We chatted for a while before saying goodnight and going to set up our tent.
Tofu came along and the three of us chatted as we set up our tents and cooked dinner. We were wearing all of our layers as it was already cold and the sun still hadn’t even fully set! Seemingly out of nowhere another familiar face appeared… Gentleman! He was only wearing his tiny short shorts and hiking shirt!! I was cold just looking at him. We haven’t seen him since Oregon and were so happy he caught us before the end. We chatted with him as he took a break. He wanted to make it to the border tonight and was going to hike the final 6 miles likely arriving after 9pm in the dark. We had a good time catching up with him and planned to see him tomorrow at Manning Park after we finished.
After Gentleman left, the three of us packed into me and Wolf Bird’s tent and hung out for a while chatting and listening to the ‘Final Countdown’ playlist of songs I’d made. We stayed up past our bedtime, cherishing this final night of the trail. Canada tomorrow!!
