The landscape has remained dry since we exited the Pasayten wilderness and entered eastern Washington. This stretch took us from Oroville to Republic, Wa. We walked through Okanogan ancestral lands.
Day 36 – PNT Mile 677.4 – Water on our minds
We woke up this morning in a real bed after a refreshing night in a motel in Oroville. Showers, laundry, and food are nice during town stops, but in reality we both sleep better on the ground in our tent than indoors on a bed. We had a few final chores to do in the morning before getting back on trail, including buying four extra water bottles (two each) for the drier trail that lies ahead. We picked up bottled waters from a gas station across the street from our hotel. We don’t care about the water inside — just the bottles. We use “disposable“ water bottles on the trail because they are lighter than regular reusable bottles, just as reusable, and because they are disposable—we’ll reuse these hundreds of times, but when we leave the dry climate and have streams available more regularly they will get recycled. Next we went to the post office and picked up our package. In addition to food, it included shorts and sun hoodies for the sunny, hot weather that lies ahead. We shipped our pants and long-sleeve shirts back to my sister for safe keeping in case we need them again. We hit the trail a bit later than planned but had a great day of walking. All the food we gorged on yesterday must have given us tons of energy. We ended up getting in almost a full day of hiking on a beautiful trail that climbed into dry mountains covered in grasses, wildflowers, and ponderosa pines. For dinner we had Thai-inspired coconut curry. Yum! -T
Day 37 – PNT Mile 707.3 – Fire detour confusion
This morning we stopped at a church just off trail offering indoor plumbing to PNT hikers. Toilets and potable water were hard to resist compared to digging a hole and filtering water. We met two other PNT hikers at the church heading the opposite direction as us. They mentioned something about the upcoming fire detour and gave us a paper map showing it that they no longer needed. ~14.5 miles of the trail are still closed due to last year’s Spur Mountain Fire. We started hiking and were very confused. Our hiking app mentioned the trail closure and said follow the blue detour. There were two blue routes on our map, so we assumed they were the detour. There were no signs or anything marking the closure. We made it about 5 miles when Tim looked at the piece of paper and realized the blue routes in our app weren’t marking the fire detour—they were actually in the burned area. The detour route wasn’t in our app at all. We were supposed to start the detour way back at the church. We disn’t want to turn around, so we put our new bushwhacking skills to use. We bushwhacked and followed some forest roads to the detour route. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. -R
Day 38 – PNT Mile 719.3 – Republic, Wa
We had a fast-paced and successful day today. We woke up 11.3 miles from our hitch into Republic, Wa, but we were determined to get in and out of town before nightfall, so we moved fast. We got to the road before 11 and the second car to pass gave us a ride — nice! We have had times when it takes hours to get a ride into town. We went to the post office, went out to eat, grocery shopped, and even found a hardware store selling bear spray. We’re headed into grizzly territory, so it was time to pick that up. At a coffee shop, we had a nice time chatting with a biker named Derrick who was on his way from Washington to Idaho. For our final stop of the day we were at a brewery getting ready to head back up to the trail when a lady asked if we were PNT hikers. We said yes, and then she asked if we’d like a ride back. We had a nice conversation on the drive — thank you Mary for driving us up! We hiked for just a bit before deciding to set up camp. For dinner we had curry rice. Yum! -T
