September 18th, 2018
We woke up warm and dry in the Stehekin campground. That was a wonderful feeling, but the elevation of Stehekin is only 1112 feet, so we know it won’t last. Stehekin is a beautiful town with no roads leading into it. There are 12 miles of roads in/around Stehekin, but all of the cars have to be barged in. It is right on Lake Chelan, the biggest natural lake in Washington, and it is surrounded on all sides by towering mountains. After some coffee and socializing, we caught the 8:15 am shuttle out to the trail and we were hiking by 9:30. Right away we entered North Cascades National Park, our seventh and final National Park of the trip. Later in the day we exited the park, so now we’re back in the regular-old National Forest. Most of the hike today was at a low elevation, so it was nice and warm and dry. Our campsite is almost at 5,000 feet, so it is colder, but so far we’re still dry and that’s great. We are camping right at a trail-head next to a highway, so there are cars driving by and we can smell the nearby pit toilet. But trail angel Madd-Baker was here, so we enjoyed his cookies and coffee and didn’t want to hike on.
