September 12th, 2022 by Jon
The last hiking day. Sorry, it’s been such a long time. Frankly, I needed some time to recover, and it became hard to finish this project. This has been the adventure of a lifetime, and between wanting to do it justice and feeling exhausted, it’s taken me far too long to finish this blog.
When we woke in the morning, we listened to the rain fall, and all we could do was laugh. It was the last day, for crying out loud! We laughed, and the rain only pounded harder on our tent, as if to punish us for it. We packed as much as we could from inside the tent before eating breakfast and stepping out into the cold. The ground was damp, and we could tell one corner of the tent had a puddle underneath it. Thankfully, the new tent has some excellent sealed seams, and we were dry on the inside. It was sprinkling lightly when we got out of our tent, and we packed up the sopping mess before it almost entirely stopped by the time we were ready to begin hiking.
The trail was pretty flat for the 12-ish miles we had left. We walked along the river through old-growth forest, wincing as our bodies rubbed against very wet plants that soaked our clothes, legs, and shoes. The first 6 miles went by quickly. The trail was ever so slightly downhill from where we started to where we took our break, with some small ups and downs along the way. Most of those were to drop down a small bank, cross a stream or creek, and then climb out the other side. There was a mixture of smoke and fog in the air that gave the morning a ghostly quality.
I found a nice log underneath an evergreen tree that was a bit drier than the ones I had passed and sat to take a break. Missile and Wilco caught up to me within a minute or two, and we laughed as we ate the last of our bars. Singsong showed up a bit later, having just taken a break a little ways back overlooking the river from above on a cliff and admiring the waterfall we had just passed. Spirits were high as we threw our packs on again, and we steeled ourselves for the last 6 miles on the PCT. We cruised through more beautiful forest before eventually coming to a sign indicating that we were entering the Lake Chelan National Recreation Area. We climbed down a series of switchbacks before reaching a bridge that carried us across the Stehekin River. As we did, we formally entered North Cascades National Park.
After the bridge, we hiked up a small dirt path and came to a road. We walked along this road around a small bend and then crossed yet another bridge, where we came to the ranger station that also served as the bus stop. We cheered and were cheered by our friends as we came to the benches, and we took off our packs. We spent an hour talking excitedly about town, all the things we would do, and the food we would eat. Somehow, all five of us managed to bring a little less food than we probably needed, and while we weren’t totally starving, it was more rationing than was comfortable. An hour later, a large school bus came and picked up 25 other hikers and us.
We stopped at Stehekin Valley Ranch, where we arrived just in time to order lunch. We had to be back on the bus in 25 minutes, so we had the fastest lunch of all time before piling back on and admiring the rugged trees and community that stood on the banks of the Stehekin River, which flowed towards Lake Chelan. The road just follows the river for about 10 miles, passing a few small outlying houses before finally reaching the renowned Stehekin Pastry Company. I heard people talking about this place back in Oregon, and we were extremely excited to buy all the things. Unfortunately, they were out of sticky buns, but we did manage to get a cinnamon roll, two pieces of pizza, and a chicken bake.
We got back on the bus and drove the 2 miles we had left down to Stehekin Landing where we would catch the ferry to Chelan the next morning. We headed up to the campground to claim a tent spot instead of going to the store like everyone else. Wilco had warned us that the campground was on a huge hill and there were a limited number of flat spots. We hiked up the hill behind the store, and we all found great spots near each other with a picnic table. After setting up camp and laughing at how wet everything was, we went back to the store, bringing pastries with us, bought celebratory beer/cider, and cheered to the end of our adventure. There was a contented happiness among our crew of 5.
We ate the rest of our pastries for dinner, enjoyed Wi-Fi from the store, made town plans, and sat around talking of trail stories for the rest of the evening. We went to bed for the last time in our canvas palace, looking forward to a bed.
Great post! Awesome pictures too!