I'm sure about one thing: I'm really glad that I pushed myself to get from Stevens Pass to Stehekin in four days. The weather looked like something was starting to brew this afternoon as I was finishing up my 21.6-mile jaunt to Stehekin River Road. Now I'm in Stehekin proper, which is about 10 miles east of the trail, and despite the darkness, you can see the line of clouds mirroring the line of mountains. When I arrived in Stehekin, there were at least six other hikers already there, and a seventh had already pushed on. The weather information they had been gathering is conflicted--some reports said rain for the next five days, at least one said rain on Wed and Fri, and some said no rain at all. Park Service rangers have a report that is for the North Cascades National Park and that calls for rain, but the rangers themselves say that is for the west side of the park. So the bottom line is: No one really knows for sure. The real concern is that any rainy weather systems that blow through now have the potential to bring snow as well. Temperatures have taken a noticeable dip in the past few days as well...enough so that I've been having trouble sleeping, even with my sleeping bag liner. Here in Stehekin where the elevation is less than 2000', the temperature isn't bad, but I wouldn't want to be higher up! Too bad for me however, because that is where I'm going, hopefully tomorrow. It's hard to believe, but I have less than 100 miles to go, about 90 in fact. I have until Saturday at noon to do it. Under normal circumstances it would be a piece of cake. In fact, all the thru-hikers gathered here at Stehekin were in high spirits until they got the inconclusive weather report. We are definitely all fearing the worst even after having the best weather a hiker could hope for over the past week. I guess some of our questions will be answered tomorrow when we at least try to go out tomorrow. If the weather is very poor, I may wait another day and cram 75 miles into three days, leaving 15 for Saturday. The bottom line is that I'm just not sure of how the next few days will look. I don't think anybody does.
So now my agenda for tomorrow looks like this: breakfast, laundry, resupply. The post office doesn't open until 10 am so I'm definitely sticking around for a little while. The good news is that I'll be able to have breakfast at the same place I had dinner tonight: the Stehekin Landing Restaurant. And the food there tonight was absolutely awesome, or maybe it just tasted spectacular because I had been gnawing on trail food for four days.
So now I'm sitting outside and waiting for the pay phone--the ONLY pay phone in Stehekin--to call my parents to let them know that I made it in safely. Stehekin is remote. You can only get here by air or boat and there is zero cell service. The pay phone is even by satellite. Anyway, my phone call will only take a minute or two and this guy has been talking for a LONG time. I'm kind of starting to run out of patience because I still need to shower. Ugh...this is when I really miss modern conveniences and I need to remind myself that soon I'll be back to having as much technology at my fingertips as I'd like. Only then I'll probably be wishing for some solitude. The grass is always greener on the other side, as the saying goes.
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