PNC Days 33-35 – Hello Eastern Washington

These three days had us leaving the wilderness and heading into eastern Washington. We walked through Okanogan and Nlaka’pamux ancestral lands.

Day 33 – PNT Mile 620.1 – Goodbye Pasayten

We spent most of today continuing through the Pasayten Wilderness Area. This was our fifth and final day in the Pasayten , which has definitely been a highlight of the trail so far! We loved the landscape and remoteness! In the afternoon, we left the wilderness and entered state land. Immediately the trees and meadows were replaced with sage brush and cow pies. We ended the day at a small primitive campground. There was one other guy camped there — Bryan. He was super nice and invited us to join him at his campfire. We were happy to have someone to chat with! We still have yet to meet another PNT thruhiker. Bryan gave us beer and chocolate too! Miller High Life never tasted so good—so smooth, refreshing, and full of much needed calories! And the chocolate too! We like to have dessert after dinner on the trail, but this was a long stretch between towns so we were really rationing. Without Bryan’s chocolate, we had allotted ourselves 2 Swedish Fish and 1.5 Licorice Twists each per night. -R

Day 34 – PNT Mile 646.9 – Road walking can be exciting

Today’s “trail” was almost entirely on roads. We started out by descending on a mix of gravel roads and cattle paths, and at about 12 miles in we switched over to a paved highway which was the official trail for the rest of the day (and will continue tomorrow). Road walking is fast and easy on the muscles, but it gets tiring on the legs and feet. Still, after being in the remote wilderness for so long, it was fun to see so many people doing the things people do. We stopped for lunch at a boat launch on Palmer Lake, and as I was filling up my water bottle a ~12 year old boy named Ben noticed my filter and commented on how little tubes in the filter remove bacteria. I asked him how he knew that, and he said he learned it on YouTube from a couple that walks from Mexico to Canada… That’s one of our videos! It was really cool to see that the videos we make are teaching people things 🙂 . Later we walked past a lake house with a large group of people hanging out outside. They invited us to have a beer, and we ended up chatting with them for a long time. It was a family reunion, and everybody was super nice about letting us crash the party. Some of the older members of the family used to graze cattle and sheep in the Pasayten wilderness we just walked through, and it was amazing how they knew every mountain, valley, and trail through the area like their own back yard. We eventually got back to walking and thought we’d push on to a BLM campground, but just before it we found a great spot to set up camp between the road and the Similkameen River. Despite being next to the road, the valley we are in is unbelievably gorgeous. For dinner we had taco rice. Yum! -T

Day 35 – Mile 655.8 – Oroville

Today we only had a short 9-mile hike into the small town of Oroville with food on our minds. We decided our Oroville goal was to eat as much as possible! We arrived around 10am. Unfortunately it’s Sunday and the post office is closed, so we are spending the night to wait for our resupply package. We stayed in our first hotel of the trip. They let is check in super early. We showered, started our laundry, and then put on our rain coats/pants and headed across the street to the Mexican restaurant. I ate too much and got a bit of a stomach ache and had to take a short nap. Then we went to the grocery store to buy food and the hardware store for fuel. We had plenty of time to call some family and friends, which was nice! In the evening we met PNT thruhikers Best Western and Honey Sticks! They are first thruhikers we’ve met so far. They are headed westbound though, so we won’t see them again. -R