Stehekin to mile 2,555
Miles: 15
Slept in this morning until the luxurious time of 8:45AM. One must treat oneself from time to time.
Spent the morning in Stehekin preparing to return to the trail: picked up my first resupply box from the post office, sorted my food (whatever I didn't want either went directly into my mouth or the hiker box), used the last of the spotty slow wifi to connect to the world, and bid adieu to my Australian trail mates of the first section. Hayden is sticking around Stehekin for a full rest day. James headed back to the trail on the early bus.
I snagged the late bus out of town at 2PM. It was just me, Jabba, and Badger (the two instagram famous thru hikers filming a documentary about the trail). We joked around on the bus and they shot some footage of us talking about the trail town experience.
I stepped back onto the trail expecting snow and nothing but uphill. That had been the word on the Stehekin street (There really is only one one-way street in Stehekin. That's right, no cars, just a single shuttle bus that makes four trips a day through town). I was relieved and not at all shocked to find that the trail was pretty much the same as the trail leading into Stehekin, probably because it's the same trail.
Sometimes a bridge is just a foot log. Also, the sign on the other side of the river had been defaced to read "five dollar foot log"
I had set my sites on putting in ten miles since I was getting started so late but, checking my maps, I saw that ten miles would give me a climb of 2,000 feet over the span on two miles to do first thing in the morning. Also, the mosquito and fly ridden valley made me anxious to get to higher elevations. I decided to push for 15 miles, including the doozy of a climb.
Jabba: "Film me while I eat half of this cinnamon roll. This has gotta be, like, 1,200 calories. Imma eat it in 1,200 seconds. Wait, that's not that fast."
Ten miles in, I ran into a northbound hiker and got the intel on the upcoming section. She said that there are four or so sketchy snow patches and at least a day's worth of tough, though not at all risky, snow hiking. She said that microspikes (which I have) are helpful and that she never used her ice axe (which I also have). I think that I'll check those snow sections out. If it looks passable, I'll just make sure that I go through it with someone else. Otherwise, if it looks too sketchy, I'm fine with hiking back out of this section and skipping down the trail. She also told me that there were five southbound hikers ahead of me and that the campsite that I was headed towards was medium sized. With Jabba and Badger, the ultra experienced thru hikers, right on my heels, I decided to push my pace to try to get a spot in the campsite.
I crossed my first gotta-get-in-the-water stream! Took my shoes off and waded through the wide but only shin deep water. It was freezing cold which felt immensely good on my battered and swollen feet.
Pushing your pace up an abrupt 2,000 foot climb is a challenge. This challenge is also complicated if the climb is heavily overgrown with ferns, devil's club, and other underbrush. I pushed it nonetheless.
The campsite, which I expected to be at the top of the climb on a ridge or other flat area, was actually just built into the steep mountain side. The few flat tent-sized sites were all occupied by folk from the earlier busload. They had only arrived half an hour before me though their bus was two and a half hours earlier. One couple occupied a double site with their single tent so I asked them if they could turn in sideways so I could camp beside them. "But then we'll slide into each other." Ok then, I guess I'll just go f*** myself. Actually though, I guess by some extension of the trail motto, take care of your own business, they can call dibs because they got there first. Fine. Since there's no way that I'm hiking five more miles to find another campsite, tonight will be my first cowboy camping of the trip.
There are many ditches but this one is mine
Note: cowboy camping means camping without a tent. You put a ground sheet down (mine is basically a big rectangle of plastic bag material), you put your pad on top, you put your sleeping bag on your pad, and voila! You're cowboy camping.
2nd note: some people say that you should cowboy camp at all possible opportunities on the trail to get the full experience.
3rd note: the people who say the thing from the 2nd note can go f*** themselves. Cowboy camping is inferior to tent camping because with a tent you can put your things inside, you have privacy, you are protected from bugs/critters/the elements, you get a fleeting feeling of control over your environment on this insane abandon-all-comforts adventure.
4th and final note: Badger set up his tiny tent in a tiny space near me. As he set it up, he told me he was probably being ridiculous for setting it up and not cowboy camping. Ha ha! A show of deference to my cowboy camping badassery. That's right, Badger. I did this willingly and do this all the time. Please continue assuming things about my complete rule over the outdoors. Let me know if you have any questions.