Washington Part 2

Today we’re in a little ski town called Snoqualmie Pass, about half way through Washington. We’re taking our final rest day of the trip today. After this, we’ll just have one 200 mile push to the end.

We’ve been loving Washington. It’s hillier and cooler than Oregon, and the scenery is spectacular.

We’re here in peak berry season. Blueberries and huckleberries line the trail almost everywhere, with some occasional raspberries and salmonberries thrown in. We eat them constantly as we hike, and every once in a while we just sit down in a patch of them and gorge. We’ve been craving fresh fruit the whole trip, and eating loads of berries helps satisfy that craving.

Margo taking a blueberry break

Two days ago (on Saturday), we found ourselves in the middle of an ultra marathon, the Cascade Crest 100 mile run. These nut jobs start running at 9am on Saturday, and don’t sleep until they’ve finished 100 miles. For most of them this takes until Sunday afternoon. Initially I was worried that sharing the trail with so many people who were always running up behind us would be annoying, but it was actually a blast. They energized us, and helped break up the monotony of walking day after day. We were with them around miles 20-30 of their run, so they were still pretty fresh and happy. They were fun to chat with as they ran by. They marveled at what we were doing, and we marveled right back at them. Also, the race aid stations gave us some delicious, carby race food. That got us on their side real quick.

This has been a bad year for wildfires, and we still have 2 north of us that will impact us. The first is a 20 mile section that is closed. This one will require a detour through a little village called Holden, then a boat ride to a place called Steheiken get back on track. That one isn’t too bad, and actually sounds kind of fun, as long as the smoke isn’t too bad.

The second fire is a real bummer for us though. The last 60 miles of the trail before the Canadian border are closed. So we’ve decided to end our hike at the closure, at Rainy Pass. We may drive around to Manning Park in Canada and hike south for a day to the monument that is the official end of the PCT – for now its still legal to get to the monument that way. But it’s a shame we won’t be able to hike straight to the border like we’d planned.

But, we’ve still got 200 miles of hiking ahead of us, and everyone says the best of Washington is still to come. We’ll savor every bit of it.