One year since I left Stehekin the first time

So, a year ago today, I left Stehekin. For people who were following my PCT Thru Hike a year ago, they may have known that I had a false start on my original start date back in June of 2024. On the 17th, I headed down to Mount Vernon and got picked up by Dan "The Man" Cimoch and stayed overnight in a tent in his backyard before being dropped off at the Lion's Den. I staed with a couple from Europe and an PCT and AT thru-hiker known as "Flaming Hot" who was trying to finish off the elusive Section L before beginning his CDT Thru-Hike to complete his Triple Crown. When we headed out to the Lions Den, we dropped him off at Rainy Pass since he was going to attempt to go from Rainy straight to the border.

When I arrived, Juneuary hit and there were twenty people hanging out at the Lions Den coming back from their mostly failed attempt at getting to Monument 78. While Harts Pass Snotel hit 0 on June 15th, the trail was still mostly covered in snow and it was a really hard year. A hiker ended up falling off the Devils Staircase near Hopkins Lake and had to be airlifted to Bellingham where their PCT thru-hike ended. I ended up setting up my tent down at the end of the property near a shed, where Gary and his family setup. Gary wanted to hike the PCT his whole life and he got his family along to help him out. They were the ones who bestowed upon me my trail name "Logs" due to the fact that I snore.

Anyway, while sitting around just chilling and contemplating my life choices, Flaming Hot shows up in camp having been defeated by the snow right around Cutthroat Pass. Given that I was barely able to get through this myself a month later, I can now understand why he'd have difficulty with it. Anyway, the next day I decided to explore the Methow and I went to Mazama and Withrop for something to do, since the trail was still covered. At the end of the day, Flaming Hot made fun of me and said that I wasn't going to make it up to Harts. I then called him out on his bet, and the next morning I was out there, and I hitched a ride from Border Patrol to get up to Harts Pass.

Once I made it up to Harts Pass, we ran into a previous SOBO hiker who wanted to do some Trail Magic, had a Costco Muffin, stored my food in the Bear Bin, and I made my way up to the border. It was clear hiking with Flaming Hot that he was much faster than me, but at the same time he also had over 2000 miles under his belt. The snow on the trail around Buffalo Pass was a little sketch, but nothing too bad. When I made it to Windy Pass, I made sure to get some water, and Flaming Hot decided to go ahead with someone who was in better shape. I then made the call to go solo.

That's when everything went sideways.

The United States has this concept of the "Wilderness", which is an area in the National Forests where forests are preserved. In reality, it's areas that are too difficult for logging companies to log, and that also means that it's usually mountainous terrain. As you can see on the map, the track ends near Tamarack Peak. This is where a bunch of snow piles up and it's really where Southbound hikers get their first taste of navigating real mountains. As you can see on the track, you can see how far I went off the trail, and where I fell into a tree. I got stuck in a tree, panicked and had to be rescued by these Australians who were coming back from Monument 78. At this point, only two people have made it there from the South, and these women would be the third and fourth people this year.

I decided to call it because it was clear I was too heavy to navigate the three feet deep snow and that everyone who was making it up were lighter, faster and in better shape. As I headed back, it felt like I was getting extremely tired, and I ended up having dinner up at Buffalo Pass before I made it back to Harts Pass late in the night. I walked into Harts Pass Campground looking pretty damn defeated after seeing the thunderstorm come in, and I saw Greazy eating some backcountry meal and telling me about his time in the military and how he's going for his triple crown.

I set up camp at Harts Pass, get water from a puddle and go to bed. Unfortunately for me, since I'm an overweight sweatly ass person, my single wall tent captured all the moisture coming off my body and decided to rain it down on me in freezing temperatures, and I ended up soaking my quilt. I didn't get any sleep that night and as soon as daybreak hit, I used the paracord to string up my quilt and I dried the thing out. After half a day, we waited around and we finally managed to hitch our way back to Mazama and the Lions Den.

I then decided it was time to do laundry, get a free-standing tent with a proper rainfly instead of a single wall tent, and I went into Wintrop and dropped a stupid pile of money fixing stuff and shipping stuff back to Canada. The following day, I decided to follow Dan's advice and hike from Rainy to Stehekin, which was honestly one of the best parts of the PCT for me.

I made it to Six Mile Camp and set up camp there. It's an extremely nice camp, and given that I started pretty late, I was happy to make it and not push it all the way to High Bridge. After I did this, I then headed down to High Bridge, but not before having my Black Diamond Trekking Poles snap while coming down a relatively chill switchback.

I make it to the High Bridge ranger station and while I'm waitng for the bus to get to Stehekin, I hear from the ranger, who is just chilling wearing a Hawaiian shirt, that Suattle Pass still has three feet of snow. I then head into Stehekin and run into all the people who I previously saw back at the Lions Den. I then ran into Gary and the family who went ahead and turned back there. At this point, it was clear that I had to call this attempt becuase after the bullshit up at Harts Pass on Day 1, I didn't want to deal with more of that. I also remembered that Fomula E and Overland Expo were happening soon and realized that I could take a break from the PCT sufferfest, go to Portland to Formula E, go to Bend to Overland Expo, head back to Canada and then turn around and come back. (It turns out that you can't REALLY do this because it voids your permit, but they turned a blind eye and told me it was a VERY LONG RESUPPLY.)

The fire in Stehekin was just starting, but it was super tiny the first time I went through. I ended up taking the ferry, buying some bullshit socks and spending a day in the tub in Lake Chelan. I then took the free bus down to Wenatchee and took the bus to Seattle and the Amtrak Cascades back to Canada, feeling pretty defeated, because the PCT kicked my ass on the first attempt.

I'm going to continue writing about the next attempt, but I really wanted to start writing about it now that I managed to get the Mapbox component to work with Next.js. I'll probably experiment with styles to see if I can make the maps for asthetically pleasing.