PNC Days 60-62 – Completing the Pacific Northwest Trail!

We wrapped up the first major leg of our Pacific Northwest Circuit: The Pacific Northwest Trail! We spent 62 days walking 1250 miles from the western-most point of the contiguous US (Cape Alava) to the Chief Mountain monument in Glacier National Park. We walked a continuous footpath, with the exception of two boat rides that are part of the official route. We saw two bears, a mountain lion, and countless wonderful people along the way. Now we’ll head north into Canada for a portion of the the Great Divide Trail until we reach our canoe in Canal Flats and start paddling back to the ocean. The last three days took us through Blackfeet and Ktunaxa ɁamakɁis ancestral lands.

Day 60 – PNT Mile 1220.8 – Tagging the Canadian Border

We are enjoying a few lower-mileage days through Glacier National Park. We socialized with some other backpackers who shared our backcountry site in Glacier while eating breakfast. We hit the trail later than usual, but that was OK. When we did start walking, the trail was covered in overgrown thimbleberry bushes that were soaking wet. That meant even though it wasn’t raining, we were soaking wet. The unpleasant hiking conditions were canceled out by Glacier’s amazing scenery. At the top of a pass today we met a group of hikers that included an 8 year old girl who had hiked 13.5 miles yesterday. Impressive!

Today our destination was the Canadian Border on Waterton Lake. If this were normal times, we could have walked right into Canada here. But thanks to Covid, the border crossing is closed. Instead we decided to walk up and “tag” the Canadian border. Then we headed back down to the PNT, and over the next two days we’ll walk about 30 miles out to a road followed by several hours of hitchhiking to cross the border at an open crossing. Once we arrive in the town of Waterton in Canada by car, we’ll walk south to the exact spot we were at today and tag the border from the other side. Then we’ll resume hiking north. This way we’ll have a continuous footpath across the border without breaking any laws. Strange times! While at the border we swam in Waterton Lake and chatted with some Canadians who had canoed down here to camp right by the border on the Canadian side. There is no enforcement of the border itself — both countries seem to be OK with people hanging out on both sides of the official border line, they just don’t want us to actually head north into the infrastructure of Canada from here. Once back on the PNT, we met a friendly hiker at our reserved campsite and chatted while we enjoyed salsa beans and rice for dinner. Yum! -T

Day 61 – Mile 1242.3 – Glacier National Park

Today was a relatively easy and quite social day of hiking. We only had 20 miles to cover to get to our reserved campsite. Right as we were getting ready to leave camp, a Park Ranger stopped by and we had a nice, long conversation with him about thruhikers and permits. We hiked a bit with Alec, the guy we camped with last night, at the start of the day. Chatting with him made the time fly by. Then we hiked over Stoney Pass which had incredible views! We also met a nice couple at the top who we chatted with for a bit. As we descended towards camp, the vegetation became much drier. We saw a moose and had a short thunderstorm late afternoon. At camp this evening we had fun chatting with two groups while we ate our dinner. -R

Day 62 – GDT Mile 5.7 (PNC Mile 1253.9) – Getting into Canada

Today we finished the PNT! We had about 6 miles to go from camp to the terminus and we got there just before 10. The terminus is right on a border crossing, but the crossing is closed presumably because of covid-related staffing issues. We started walking towards the border to take photos at the monument, and immediately a border patrol truck pulled up out of nowhere to ask what we were up to. He was nice though and was happy to let us approach the border to take pictures. We didn’t know how hard or easy hitching into Canada would be, but we met a great family at the border who was more than willing to drive us around! Maggie, the youngest of the group, even knew us from our TikTok videos! We had a fun time driving and chatting quite a ways until we made it to Waterton Townsite, which was also their destination. We parted ways, picked up our resupply box, and then went out to eat!

Next we realized we had a lot of walking yet to do today. The spot on the border that we tagged two days ago is about 5 miles south of Waterton Townsite, so we got to walking and made the round trip pretty quickly. This maintains our continuous footpath, even though we had to get a ride to an open border crossing. It also means we got to start our Canadian leg of this journey at the terminus of the Great Divide Trail (GDT; Canada’s continuation of the Continental Divide Trail). As we finished the hike we met another great family who we had a great time chatting with and they even let us do our laundry in their cabin! Thank you Margo, Bruce, Bethany, and Riley! Finally, at about 12 am, we were in our tent ready for bed. Tomorrow we’ll resume by hiking northbound on the GDT. -T