This stretch of trail included social interaction every day, which has not been our experience so far on the Pacific Northwest Trail. We saw family, a fellow TikToker, and we have started intersecting westbound hikers. We walked through Colville and Sinixt ancestral lands.
Day 42 – PNT Mile 803.3 – Extra Coffee
We camped last night 1.6 miles off of the PNT with my mom and her boyfriend. When we woke up we enjoyed a relaxing morning full of coffee, food, more coffee, some beer, and then more coffee. What a great way to start the day! We sat around and chatted until about 10, then we packed up camp and Renee and I hit the trail at about lunch time. We were well fed and happy to have been able to interact with people on this mostly-lonely trail. Thanks mom and Iain for driving out of your way and bringing so much food! Today’s hike was mostly through a burned area, which means dead trees but beautiful flowers. Burned areas can be hot and overgrown, and this one was no exception, but we were full of energy from the extra food so it was pleasant walking anyway. I found a beehive under a fallen tree, but fortunately none of the bees came out to get me. We decided to walk to a campground at a road crossing instead of setting up in the forest to avoid being crushed by a falling dead tree. When we got there, we saw some hikers we know from TikTok that are doing the PNT this year, but we hadn’t met them in person until now. They were the 6th and 7th thruhikers we have encountered on the PNT. We had dinner together and enjoyed chatting. We ate unstuffed peppers. Yum!! -T
Day 43 – PNT Mile 828.5 – Swimming
We woke up this morning and had fun chatting some more with Iguana and Chubby Bunny. Then we headed east and they headed west. Shortly after we started, we ran into eastbound thruhiker #8, Castanza, and chatted with him for a bit. This has been a lonely trail, so the thruhiker camaraderie this morning gave us a boost of energy. It turned into quite a hot day. At lunchtime we found a shady spot next to a beautiful creek surrounded by cedars that was deep enough to lay in. We haven’t showered in 7 days. Plus we walked through a long section of burned forest, which covered us in black soot, so a forest bath was needed. Our wonderful 1.5 hour lunch break included rinsing off our dirty bodies, a lunch of cold-soaked potatoes, a nap for me while Tim sewed shut a hole in the mesh of his backpack, and a coffee. Then we headed back out into the heat for the rest of the day. -R
Day 44 – PNT Mile 852.3 – Westbounders
There is a heat wave in eastern Washington right now so we woke up early to beat the heat and started hiking at our earliest hour yet — 6:10. We had a very easy 19 mile descent into the town of Northport where we had a resupply box and a new set of poles for Renee waiting for us at the post office. Right away we bumped into a westbound hiker named Carlos — exciting! During the hike we bumped into two more hikers, and once we got to town there were two more hikers! We even crossed paths with another hiker on the trail after town. That makes six hikers heading west today, and before today we had only seen eight thru or section hikers headed any direction on the entire trail. It was fun chatting with them all and getting intel about the trail ahead. In chronological order, the hikers we met today were: Carlos, Quetzel, Brandon, Scott, Pound Cake, and Number Two.
Aside from meeting hikers, the rest of the day had plenty of excitement. We crossed the Columbia River on a bridge. We will be back here over a month from now going under the same bridge in our canoe. The River was beautiful and it looked like a pleasant current to carry us downstream. We got into and out of town pretty quickly, which is always our goal. In town I succeeded in doing some work, Renee found a bunch of kittens to play with, and we both met a very nice older couple at a bar who bought us a beer and told us about their life in Alaska. We are camped at an RV park five miles past town. For dinner we had Ethiopian-style lentils and rice. Yum! -T
Sounds like a great trip so far. Stay safe. Looking forward to your experiences on the water!