Rainy Pass to Stehekin
Miles: 19.5
By 12:20PM today, I had hiked 19.5 miles.
Woke up at my campsite next to a parking lot at Rainy Pass. I was up early, 5:15AM, since Hayden, James, and I were shooting to make the 3:30PM shuttle from High Bridge into Stehekin. The little lake town of Stehekin, reachable only via hiking or ferry, was my next resupply and first chance at warm food in five days.
I hit the trail at 6:15AM and set a quick pace. The trail was the ideal mix of cushy pine needle ground cover, clear paths, and cool morning temperature. My Fitbit buzzed at 7:45AM letting me know that I had hit my 10,000 step goal for the day. Thanks, Fitbit, I'll factor that into my plan.
By 9:30AM, I had hit 10 miles. I caught up to Hayden and we stayed within a quarter of a mile of each other for a couple miles. At the 11 mile mark, I arrived at a new looking suspension bridge over a steep creek. Walking across it was nerve wracking since it swayed a foot from side to side. I waited on the other side for Hayden to catch up and cross it so that I could snag a pic of him. A couple hundred feet further down the trail, I paused to take another picture and Hayden passed me. Noting his accelerating pace, it only took me a moment to realize that, since it was 10AM and we had 8.5 miles to go, that he had decided to gun it for the 12:30PM shuttle. My stomach dropped since I also knew that I had no cash (still no wallet), and the shuttle into town costs $8.
Ugggggghhhhhhhhh
I speed hiked half a mile, then ran down half a mile of switchbacks and trail curves before I caught up with Hayden. He was indeed shooting for the earlier shuttle. At that point, we had two hours and 7.5 miles to go. Apparently one of us had heard of a 4mph pace, so we of course thought it was possible.
We superspeed hiked the next 5ish miles. Stopping once to check our progress via GPS, Hayden, standing behind me, pointed with his pole into the bushes thirty feet away from us, "look, a bear!" It was a young looking brown bear perusing the underbrush right off of the trail. I immediately raised my poles over my head and began banging them together to scare it away. The bear just raised its head, looked at me with wide eyes and round ears straight up, then stuck its head down and resumed its meal. Of course, seeing as my expert pole banging test had clearly identified the bear as a non-threat, we took out our phones to take pictures.
With 45 minutes and 2.5 miles to go, Hayden, hiking behind me, spoke up, "I may start getting a little jog in there, mate." I tightened all of my pack straps until the backpack had completely merged with my body. We took off running.
We arrived at the shuttle stop at 12:20PM. I had drunk 2 liters of water over the course of those 19.5 miles. I had eaten 2 granola bars and a pack of sports beans. My water bottles were empty and I could barely walk.
I climbed on the shuttle. Hayden paid the driver for both of us. There was a jug of water at the front with small paper cups. I stood in front of the jug, grabbed a cup, and filled it and downed it five times. The bus driver was unenthused. I slumped into a seat next to James who had also shot for the early shuttle but had left an hour earlier than us, thereby avoiding the miles of sprinting. "Looks like you did some running." I told him we had and he said that we should have left earlier.
I ate an entire package of salami during the half hour shuttle into town. The shuttle was full of teenagers on their way home from a 3 day backpacking trip. They were excited to be done and yelled and laughed the whole way. One of them showed me a picture on his phone that he took on the PCT two miles before the shuttle stop. It was a nest of rattle snakes with a huge mother rattler coiled up on top and staring directly into the camera. Good thing we had sprinted over that.
Stehekin was surreal. This was the first time that, as a thru-hiker, I was in the minority. I felt really dirty and smelly. I hadn't looked in a mirror in five days so didn't know if I had food or boogers on my face. Hayden was blissfully unaware of the granola bar crumbs covering the lower part of his face - making me more nervous about my own appearance. The Stehekin shop door had a sign saying "no backpacks."
I spent the afternoon sorting everything out and relaxing. I bought a wifi code to check into the world and make calls. I bought a bottle of root beer, an ice cream sandwich, and junior mints for a morale snack (somehow I remember all of my credit card numbers so I got the store to manually plug the numbers in to pay for my snacks). I showered (5 minutes, coin operated). I talked the shop owner into printing my PCT permit. I threw some of my clothes into a wash load with other hikers. I used an actual pay phone - wasting about a quarter of my calling card on wrong numbers due to user error. I charged my phone and external battery using the only outlet I could find. There was a two-outlet plug behind the washing mashing, with one outlet unused by the machine. By pulling the washer 10 inches away from the wall, I could fit my devices back there and plug in.
Ate dinner at the Stehekin restaurant: burger, beer battered fries, blue cheese side salad, and Sierra Nevada beer (shout out to NoCal). Warm food tasted so good. My stove-using dinner-mates all wolfed their meals down within fifteen minutes. It took me an hour to finish mine.
There were a bunch of other thru-hikers at the campground, mostly younger guys who had picked up six packs and were chatting loudly. They invited me over, kindly. I stayed for a couple minutes, long enough to hear that one of them, a tiny skinny guy, had been charged by a moose near hart's pass. He avoided the moose by diving off of the trail into a muddy ditch.
I set up my tent for the first time in the dark and was out in minutes.