88 miles left in Washington! Section L is the final stretch in most thru hikers’ journeys- and it is fantastically beautiful!
We experienced snow, rain, wind, and a lot of sun which was awesome. Our first day out was quite damp and we were happy that we didn’t fully trust the weather report. With our recent memories of the previous week- we had issues keeping our spirits up! All of that changed the following morning when we saw sunshine however!
The North Cascades are magnificent and I look forward to exploring them more in the future- the altitude and vast landscapes made it feel as if we were in another part of the country (mini sierras perhaps?)
This stretch of trail was only about 70 miles long, so it was fairly easy to do in 3 days- the transportation to and from the trailheads took a long while and we are very happy that we could get a ride up there (Thank you Kim!).
Before we knew it… Monument 78 appeared out of nowhere on our left- this is the Northern Terminus of the PCT. Even though I still have quite a few miles left, I was very happy to be here. After some photos were taken, I signed the log book and we continued for 8 miles into British Columbia to a place called Manning Park. Very few hikers were actually making it into BC, and I am not sure why- it is shorter to end there, and Harts Pass (in WA) is a hard place to get a ride from. The only theory that might hold is that Canada denied them entry due to previous convictions. We bumped into one person who jumped into Manning just to get some treats and said that he wasn’t allowed in but did so anyways so that theory might hold.
April 14th, 2014 was my start date this year. I dropped out June 17th, and I hiked to the Northern Terminus on Sept 5th, 2014. I still have some more hiking time this year- but I think I am around 1,200 miles so far 🙂
