A Monumental Moment!!

9/1/13

PCT mile 2654-2660-@2669 - @15 miles

(Hopkins Lake to the PCT Monument to Manning Park, British Columbia, Canada)

Last night Walking Home arrived back to his tent from the border around 12:30am by headlamp having completed his 2,660 mile thru hike in the quiet of his own company. (Peggy saw his headlamp go by in the darkness.)

Also in the night I had a deer that clomped around my tent for a long time, I got up, gathered rocks and tried chucking them at him, clapped my hands and making noise.  Nothing seemed to faze him.  He seemed big and scary until the moon caught him just right and threw his silhouette on my tent. I could see him chewing, tongue flicking in and out and his head dipping down to grab grass and paw the ground.  I tried to count the antler points but couldn't get a long enough look.  I could hear him breathing he was so close!   When I saw the silhouette I laughed out loud because if he was this close I knew no other animal could be near, suddenly I felt safe & sound!   Not long after that he wandered away and I fell back to sleep.  Lots of things walking around here in the dark this night!

We slept almost to 6:30, I woke and watched the sun rise upon our camp and touch the mountains with light.

Within today's first mile we'll  celebrate our 500 mile mark.  

It was cold in the shadows this morning as we started hiking but we soon reached mile 2655, our 500th mile,  which we carved on one of the huge mushrooms we've been seeing over the last few days.

We used soap to wash our hands in a stream in case it was poisonous. (On hindsight we both agreed we should not have handled it not knowing if it was deadly). Peggy has been taking lots of photos of mushroom all along the trail,  given her work in biochemistry and special interest in plants, she'll be identifying these once she get her hands on a computer and plant identification books.

Our enthusiasm for the completion of the trail waned as the trail went through wet brush and overgrown, potholed trail. I countered the annoyance of wet pants, shoes & socks by eating huckleberries. Peggy told me not to touch them in case the poison was still on my hands, so I grabbed the bush and ate them off the branch!  Never say no to a full berry bush.

The sky was blue and the air warming up, the trail wound in and out of forest and brush but there were  no vistas from mountain tops today.  I kept a lookout for any sign that we were getting close to the border.

This is the first sign we came to at Castle Pass. Still some miles to go before the border though. 

 More ho-hum scenery and then, there it was, a clear cut line in the forest disappearing over the mountain to my left, it had to be the line between the US and Canada.

My heart started to pound, I knew we were close and I picked up my pace without realizing it. 

Rounding a turn in the trail, in the shadow of the trees was a wide spot, nothing really to announce itself, was the monument.

In the above photo, the sign facing me on the right was the Canadian welcome sign. In the middle was the monument for the border agreement (under the base is the PCT book to sign for the year's hiking roster) on the left is the PCT Monument.

The writing says Northern Terminus Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail.

We accomplished our goal at around 11am, hiking the state of Washington at around 505 miles!!   Yahoooo!!!

We left the monument and hiked into Canada taking a nice lunch break at a river in the sun. 

The remaining miles to Manning Park were on a narrow trail in the forest over a few mountains and down into the Park. We met a few Canadians hiking for the day or weekend, this is Labor Day weekend for them too. At last we arrived at a road and stepped onto the shoulder to walk .7 miles to the lodge, a room, a shower, laundry and a celebration!

Tired but happy to have arrived in Canada!

E-mail notes were sent by Peggy to family as we waited for our rooms to be ready. Maybe it was because I knew we didn't need to hike the next day but I could hardly walk my feet ached and felt bruised.  We saw another hiker walking by and had him join us for lunch, it was TareBare who we met in Stehekin. He'd arrived two days before. We made plans to transport him back to Medford with us.