Day 146 - 6 Days Remaining

(Originally written on Sunday, September 27)

I can honestly say that I think I hiked more switchbacks today than any other of the roughly 150 days on the trail. They were relentless. The 2.5-mile steep climb I mentioned in yesterday's entry? All switchbacks. And when I got to the top, after a brief respite, it was switchbacks all the way down to Vista Creek. Then I had another batch of them later on. But it is okay because the weather was absolutely perfect! I literally did not see one cloud all day long. And in the North Cascades, that is a rarity.

Today's hike was anything but "normal". I woke up to iced-over pools of water and frost everywhere. It was frigid! I started out by 8, and knowing that I had some rough, poorly maintained terrain in front of me, I was only hoping to hike 20 miles. I nearly didn't even get that! I started out with a steep drop down to Milk Creek (via switchback of course), then straight back up the other side, then back down to Vista Creek and the Suiattle River before I finished the day with a relatively easy 4.4-mile climb.

The mileage problems really began on the super-steep ascent. It just took longer than expected and by the time I finally got to a decent break point at the top, it was already 11:45 am. Then the descent to Vista Creek, Gamma Creek, and Suiattle River was completely choked with blowdowns (I referenced this in earlier entries). I couldn't believe how many downed trees there were! I took some photos just because I wanted to make sure I could prove later on that I wasn't exagerrating. Most of the time there was a relatively easy route around the trees, but oftentimes there weren't. One place in particular had so mich debris, I had a hard time finding the trail on the other side. I'm just really glad that I put in big miles the past two days so that a day like today didn't kill my chances of getting to Stehekin by tomorrow. My last big challenge of the day was the crossing of the Suiattle. The hype was all that: hype. There really wasn't much of a challenge to it. As long as you were paying attention, you'd be fine. I will say, however, that I'm glad I wasn't halfway across the river when the two fighter jets on a training run came roaring through the canyon! It was loud and awesome...I never get tired of seeing them!

Anyway, now I'm left with 21.6 mostly downhill miles to get to Stehekin River Road tomorrow. The last shuttle bus into town leaves at 6:15 so I don't have a whole lot of time to take my time on the trail. Once there, I'll be doing my final resupply...hard to imagine.

Day 145 - One Week Remaining

(Originally written on Saturday, September 26)

Back-to-back 28-mile days...woohoo!

After two days of hiking north of Stevens Pass, I have about 44 miles to go to Stehekin, my last resupply stop on the trail.

This morning I woke up to a mist with bite. The bite came from the chilly breeze. Today was the first day on the trail that felt like fall all day long. The clouds eventually burned off, but it was chilly enough that I wore my gloves all day long. Perhaps it was because of the chill that I did my 28 miles before the sun went down, unlike yesterday. I move faster in the cold weather just to stay warm!

Speaking of staying warm, it is freezing outside tonight! Even now inside my sleeping bag I can feel it. It's a good thing I brought my sleeping bag liner with me for this part of the trip...I can feel the difference already! But as cold as it is, I'm already dreading tomorrow morning. Getting up is going to be harder than usual...ugh. On the plus side, I've got a pretty cool campsite that I need to take a photo of before I break camp. Basically, I'm wedged between two huge rocks and one of them is providing a "roof" of sorts over top of me. Probably wouldn't help much if it was really raining, but may help counter condensation issues which would be nice.

So after two big days, tomorrow is supposed to be my "easy" 20-mile day. The problem is that I'll likely be working just as hard and just have fewer miles to show for it. The day begins with a crossing of Milk Creek. It had a bridge that was wiped out by an avalanche and now you can either go to the new bridge a mile downstream or just hop across some rocks. Then I have a (gulp) 2.5-mile climb at an 8.8 gradient. I think this will be my steepest climb of that length for the entire trip! Finally, I've got a crossing of the Suiattle River that will be interesting because it doesn't have a bridge (it got wiped out, too).

Okay...I'm off to sleep. Hopefully I'll have good things to report tomorrow!

Poo with a View

I'm sorry, but I just had to post this picture I took of a pit toilet I came across just north of Mica Lake on Saturday, September 26. The trail in Washington has a lot of these toilets in somewhat secluded places but this one made me laugh because of the view it had.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Day 144 - 8 Days Remaining

(Originally written on Friday, September 25)

Today was a day of just slugging it out. It wasn't the toughest day I've had, but it was hard for sure. The guidebook I've been using on the trip indicates that this is the second most difficult section on the entire trail, behind only the High Sierra. I'm sure I haven't seen its worst yet, but the lower elevation and smaller climbs make it much easier than the High Sierra, in my opinion. One thing I will say, however, is that this section has some very steep parts. Some of the steepest prolonged sections I've seen on the entire trail, and that's saying something!

But I learned a long time ago that this wasn't going to be an easy accomplishment. So I just keep slugging away at it, making as big a dent as I can each day. Today's mileage mark started at 188 remaining and tonight I'm at 160. I'm pretty pleased that I was able to get 28 miles done today. In a perfect world, I'll do it tomorrow, too, so that I can focus on getting about 20 the following day, Sunday. That's when I'll be navigating the worst trail conditions I've seen as well as tackling some pretty mean steep sections. It could shape up to be a long day. But first, I gotta get up and going at a decent hour tomorrow so I'm signing off for today.

Oh wait...nearly forgot! Two cool wildlife sightings to report. The first was this morning at about 9 in a forested area. I was approaching a corner when a snow white mountain goat saunters around the corner. He looked at me with an "What the...? Holy crap!" look on his face before he bolted the way he came. When I got to the corner, there was no trace of him except the hoofprints he left behind. The second cool thing I saw was in the afternoon. I heard a terrible crashing in the woods below and about 100 yards in front of me. Aside from the patch of trees, it was a wide open blueberry patch. A big, black bear had been grabbing an afternoon snack when I startled him. It was the best view of a bear I've had yet! Unfortunately, I couldn't get a photo of either occurence. Bummer.

Day 143 - 9 Days Remaining

***Before I get into this entry too far, I want to encourage you to check out my previous blog entry and think about contributing to the Lance Armstrong Foundation if you can. It is tax-deductible and will help me toward my fundraising goal. Also, I find it pretty cool that the LAF is promoting October 2 as LIVESTRONG DAY. (October 2 is the 13-year anniversary of Lance Armstrong's cancer diagnosis.) Ah, if only it were a day later.***

Now, onto the blog entry...

Well, today went moderately according to plan. If it weren't for resupply stops, I'd have had this trail finished a month ago! It's not that this stop was too much out of the ordinary (minus the distance of nearly 25 miles from Stevens Pass to Skykomish/Bering), it's just the nature of resupply stops. They just take time. You've got to shower, do laundry, eat, and make sure you've got enough food for the next section. If it's a main resupply point, then usually that means you've got a bounce box to send somewhere, which means a trip to the Post Office. Of course, you are doing this in a town you don't know and without a car, which definitely complicates matters. More often than not, the variables conspire against you and everything takes longer than you anticipate.

This would explain why I'm essentially camping at the trailhead at Stevens Pass tonight. By the time all the said resupplying was complete and I was back up at the trailhead, it was nearly dark. So, I figured I would just make camp wherever I could (it ended up being about 1/4 mile up the trail) and hope that I'm able to get up in the morning and get a good jump on the day. If I am to have any prayer of getting to Stehekin by Monday evening, I need to put in at least a 25-mile-day tomorrow. It would be much better to put in a bigger day than that to start building a buffer for navigating all the blowdowns (trees across the trail) that I know are farther up the trail. This is where the shorter days are really a problem. If I had 15 hours of daylight like I did in the Sierras, then I'd be golden, but I've only got 12. And even if I'm hiking for 10 of those, best case scenario is 30 miles.

Of course, the stress level has definitely been ratcheted up a notch. The end of the trail and the race against the weather will do that to you. Everyone is feeling it though. Despite the fact that the weather should be holding up for the time being, you can still never be sure.

Speaking of weather, I learned a couple of valuable things today from the locals. The first isn't actually directly weather-related: The terrain going from Stevens Pass to Stehekin is harsher than the terrain from Stehekin to Canada. The second is that just before I'll get to Stehekin, the trail will take me over to the east side of the Cascades, where the weather is traditionally more favorable. This is big and explains how Skykomish has a forecast for rain beginning next week and yet Stehekin is clear for the next 10 days! Finally, additional good news is that the trail will stay on the east side of the Cascades all the way to Manning Park once it crosses over by Stehekin. So the short of the long is that if everything (hiking schedules and weather forecasts) hold to form, then I should have a small window of favorable weather from here to Canada which would be AWESOME. I'm certainly not assuming anything, but definitely trying to keep moving as quickly as I can while I can.

A funny story before I wrap this up on an important note... Today, as I mentioned, I needed to resupply in Skykomish, about 25 miles from the trail. I waited about 15 minutes before a guy pulled over and offered me a lift. Not five minutes down the road, this electronic device mounted on his dash that I had never seen before started beeping. He proceeds to pick up this phone-like-looking device, took a deep breath, and blew into the small mouthpiece on the other side. He informed me that he had it installed "so that drunk people can't steal his car." I laughed then and I still laugh now when I think about it, because obviously I made it out okay. But that's a perfect example of some of the things you get to experience on a trip like this--never would I willfully put myself in a situation like that off the trail. But on the trail, beggars can't be choosers and you've gotta take what you can get to make it from Point A to Point B. In the end, it makes for a good story.

This is quickly turning into one of my longest entries of the trip thus far, and maybe it's because I'm pretty sure you won't have any updates to read for a while due to the fact that I'll be in some of the most remote terrain on the entire trail. Whatever the reason, I just want to say thanks to everyone out there who has been so supportive of me along the way, regardless of the form of that support. When I started out in May, I had no idea what to expect because I had never tackled a hike of this magnitude or anything even close to it. There were plenty of times when I probably could have quit and felt totally justified in doing so, and while I haven't made it yet, I can say that on several occasions it was the family member, friend, and even stranger who came alongside me and did or said something that helped keep me going. It didn't need to be something major. Just something to remind me that people were out there pulling for me. So, on that note, I say thank you.

Fundraising Update

Hey Everyone - This will likely be one of the last real-time updates you'll see on my blog until I get to Canada.  All reports that I've heard have indicated that cell service between here (Skykomish) and Manning Provincial Park, British Columbia, is nearly nonexistent.  So I'll still be blogging, but likely won't be able to post until after I arrive in Manning Park on Saturday, October 3. 
 
Anyway, since I may likely be out of technological contact for quite some time, I'm appealing to everyone out there who has been thinking about contributing, but hasn't yet.  After 4 1/2 months (142 days) of relentless hiking with no weekends, I only have a few more days on the trail and would like to get over $10,000 before I arrive in Canada.  I'm at $8,800 now and so am almost there! 
 
So please take a minute or two and go to www.hikeforhope2009.com, click on the "his fundraising page" link, and contribute what you can.  Any support is very much appreciated!
 
Thanks and I look forward to seeing many of you in a few short weeks (or less)!
 
RJK

Day 142 - 10 Days Remaining

(Originally written on Wednesday, September 23)

I woke up freezing this morning. It was SO cold that I really hadn't slept much since about 2:30 this morning. I knew it was 2:30 because I woke up cold and checked the time. After hitting snooze about five times, I actually did go back to sleep for another 30 minutes. And is so often the case when that happens, it was good sleep. The only downside was that it kept me from getting the good early start I had hoped for. By the time 10 am had rolled around, I had only hiked three miles. Even though they were all uphill, I was still pretty disappointed in myself. That's the frustrating thing about this hike--regardless of the number of miles you went, it wasn't enough. I've made peace with the fact that there is so much on this trail that I would like to stop and savor for more than a few minutes, but it is still frustrating.

Anyway, I was surprised to get a intermittent, yet strong enough to get email, cell signal at Cathedral Pass, so I sat there and sifted through my messages. It is amazing how few a person gets when he has no way of responding! I suppose that will change when I get myself reintegrated with society. Until then, I'll enjoy the simplicity while I can.

The rest of the day was full of steep descents and climbs, but since I'm near a resupply point and don't have much food left, my pack doesn't weigh much and I really enjoyed the terrain. At one point I even got to look down on a fighter jet as it roared through a valley I was beginning to descend into. It reminded me of my very first day on the trail--May 5--when the Border Patrol helicopters were flying through Hauser Canyon and I was looking down on them then, too. It's just so weird to think that was nearly five months ago!

So now I'm officially less than 200 miles from the end. I think it is somewhere around 196, with seven of those being in Canada, so 189 miles to the border monument and 10 days to do it in. I was a little concerned about the terrain from Skykomish to Canada--I had heard nightmares about 400 "blowdowns" (trees fallen across the trail) and crazy river crossings. But today I met to thru-hikers going south and they gave me all the latest info on the situations. Basically, the river crossings were no big deal and the blowdowns were confined to about a 6-mile-long stretch. So I was encouraged by that. I'm just praying that the weather holds up. It has been absolutely gorgeous lately and I'm hoping it stays that way for 10 more days.

Tomorrow I've got a busy day. First, I'll try to hammer out the last eight miles to Highway 2 where I'll try to hitch a ride to Skykomish. There I'll shower, do laundry, and resupply as quickly as possible so that hopefully I can get a few miles in before dark. I'd love to make a dent in that roughly 100 miles to Stehekin!