Day 135: Good News at Snoqualmie Pass
Date: Thurs 8/30
PCT Start Mile: 2380.1
PCT End Mile: 2393.1
PCT Mileage for Day: 13
Total PCT Mileage: 2393.1
The Highlights:
Thankfully we woke up dry, despite the gray clouds we noticed when we went to sleep last night. Livin’ on the edge…
We had only 13 miles to get to our next stop at Snoqualmie Pass and, with town food calling us, we packed up and boogied down the trail.
The morning was hazy with fog, though the sun did try to peak out a few times as we made our way down the trail. After a few initial climbs, I was told it would we “all downhill” and “easy sailing” into Snoqualmie. LOL.
Unfortunately, elevation profiles do not reveal rocky and rooty terrain, or some of the many small undulations along a route, and it was not exactly any easy cruising trail, but definitely kept thing interesting.
As we neared Snoqualmie Pass, a beautiful mountain scene came into view and soon we were looking down on the pass. To be honest, my first reaction was… it’s kind of ugly. While the surrounding mountains were beautiful, the populated hub below was dominated by I-90 and looked like a giant rest stop, trucks coming in and out from the highway, massive parking lots, and exit-ramp like amenities (all except for a fast food joint).
Looking down on the Snoqualmie Pass area. Kind of an ugly industrial rest-stop looking area surrounded by beautiful mountains.
At any rate, we focused on the pretty mountains and continued along the trail, which now cut across some brushy ski slopes. During this last mile, a day hiker informed us that there was a welcoming committee below with cookies and coffee. Yay!!! More trail magic!
Continuing down the trail, we popped out at a trailhead where the only thing we saw were two empty vehicles. Maybe the welcoming committee had packed up and went home? Womp, womp. We continued down a rocky gravel feeder road, staying to the side as a road grader worked the road for eventual pavement.
Crossing another long gravel parking area, two people ahead quickly jumped out of their truck and began setting up a table with goodies as they saw us approach. So there was trail magic! And who was providing it? It was none other than … Hoosier Daddy!!!
Hoosier Daddy, Medhi, Shawn, and an Austrian hiker (missed her name).
Some who have read this blog in its entirety may remember me mentioning Hoosier Daddy in the very first week on the trail, when we found ourselves hiking with him off and on.
While a nice guy, he was a bit of a know-it-all and a real stage-5 clinger, and we were not keen to keep him as a hiking partner. I did not mention this before, trying to keep the blog positive, but it’s an important part of our hiking story. On a trail full of hikers, you just don’t mesh with everyone. Attempts to politely shake him were not really working out, but we finally split from him at Warner Springs (mile 109) when we stayed to rest some extra time while he hiked out in the morning.
Again, I want to emphasize that he is a really nice guy – always trying to be helpful, but we had a bit of a personality mismatch and for our own sanity, we were keen to have him hike ahead and find a new group.
All this said, it was nice to see him again. We had learned later along the trail – around the Burney Mountain area – that he had quickly leeched onto a new group that had included Medhi.
Medhi is actually the correct spelling of the Aussie we have been calling “Mitty” all along. We learned this just today and felt terrible but he said the American pronunciation is about the same. He’s never corrected anyone.
Hoosier Daddy had hiked with Medhi and some others from about Idyllwild to Bishop (literally hundreds of miles … like 6-700ish at least), before they were able to break from him. He ended up getting off the trail for good at Sonora Pass (Kennedy Meadows North) after suffering from some muscle breakdown.
Apparently he had gotten rhabdomyolysis, which is a breakdown of muscle tissue that releases a damaging protein into the blood and can be very serious, damaging the kidneys. He was now off trail and on the mend, doing some day hikes around Washington (his home state) with another hiker from Austria who was off trail, as well as setting up trail magic from time to time. Which brings us to now.
Medhi (Tapeworm), Hot Mess, and Butters at Snoqualmie Pass.
And so, we caught up on trail happenings with Hoosier Daddy, eating donuts and drinking sodas and beer. Eventually Medhi showed up – the real guest of honor, as it sounded like Hoosier Daddy had specifically set up magic here today knowing that Medhi would be coming through.
Before he had arrived, Hoosier Daddy kept asking us questions about the last time we saw Medhi, where he had camped last night (we didn’t know), how far back he was (we didn’t know, may actually be ahead of us!), what he was wearing… (Ummmm… I might remember the color of his shirt? Maybe? This is getting weird). This was the kind of intensity Hoosier Daddy lived at. It gives a small insight as to why he was a little hard to hike around.
After chatting with Hoosier Daddy and Medhi for awhile, we thanked Hoosier Daddy for the magic and moved on, heading to the Summit Inn. We had actually booked a room here before even leaving Cascade Locks, having heard good things. At the front desk, we received some very good news at check-in. The Canada border was open!!!
In order for this to be understood as good news, I’ll back up a minute. There have been several wildfires along the trail that have caused closures and detours, some reopening and others remaining as detours while fires burned on or near the trail. We took one of the detour routes just the other day for about fifteen miles into White Pass, detouring around the Miriam Fire, which is currently on the PCT.
Well, before leaving Cascade Locks, we got the terrible news that, due to a fire near the trail near the border, the last 28ish miles to the Canada border was closed! The border was closed! This was the worst possible news. While we could deal with other closures and detours, the border was obviously a huge deal… we set out to hike from the Mexico border to the Canada border. After already hiking over 2,000 miles, we needed to stand on that border!!! We needed to touch the northern terminus monument! The shiny newborder monument… a new one having been installed just this summer.
The PCT is also the only trail border where – with the proper valid permit – we could legally cross into Canada. While the Pacific Crest Trail Association had come up with an alternate route to the Canada border, it was not on the PCT, so there was no monument and you could not legally cross into Canada, so would have to backtrack several miles after reaching the border to a point where you could hitch back to the nearest town. It was a bit of a pain.
Anyway, back to now again – the hotel receptionist gave us the awesome news that the PCT had just reopened at the border! “Really!?!, we asked/exclaimed. Some other hikers in the lobby confirmed the news, which had just come through this morning. Yaaaasssss!!!!
The route to the border still involved a significant detour that was several miles longer than the actual PCT, but the alternate route eventually led you back to the PCT before the border so that you were able to finish on the PCT, at the northern terminus monument, and legally enter into Canada from there. Such a relief! We had been keeping our fingers crossed since leaving Cascade Locks that the border would reopen, as had every other hiker. What a great day. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that nothing goes sideways and the way will still be clear when we make it up that way in another week or so.
We spent the rest of the day as usual for our stops: showers, laundry, gear cleaning, organizing our resupply, and relaxing. Eventually we made our way across the street to the Dru Bru Brewery for some “bru”-skis. Ordering drinks at the bar, a former thru-hiker who had done the trail in 2014 sat down next to us, chatting about the trail, and even bought our drinks, which was super nice of him. Trail magic! “You guys are an awfully nice crew,” the bartender said, referring to hikers in general. He and a group of buddies now do trail magic in different areas of Washington each year. “If you’re still on the trail on September 28, we’ll be up at (insert complicated unpronounceable mountain pass name) doing a cocktail bar”. Wow. That sounded amazing, but we would be really upset if we were still on the trail on September 28. We should be done in about 10-11 days.
Shawn in his happy place with a beer flight.
We spent most of the rest of the day in our hotel room watching crappy tube TV, like hours of Shark Tank and some Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Eventually we peeled ourselves off the bed long enough to go back across the street and grab some dinner at the food truck next to the brewery, which we brought back to the room to eat while watching more jeopardy. Resting is hard work.
Mega burger complete with avocado, bacon, and grilled jalapeños.
Tomorrow we plan to sleep in a bit and only hike a half day, leaving after lunch. This next section is supposed to have spectacular scenery (not that the last one was too shabby). Now that the border is open, it really is ON TO CANADA!
