Thurs. July 28     Miles today: 19.9 PCT plus 2.2 other miles    Total so far: 1,406.6 miles

It was a clear, cool morning, but hard to get up–we were SO tired! Yesterday was tough.  But the thought of food and rest at Stehekin was very motivating! The morning’s hike began with a climb up Suiattle Pass.  There were mountains all around us–very impressive and beautiful.  We ate breakfast (which included our last candy bar) at a turn in the trail with a big dropoff and fabulous view.

From the top of Suiattle Pass, it’s basically downhill all the way to Stehekin, following the valley of the South Fork Agnes Creek.  The day was already very warm and cloudless–it promised to be hot.  So for that reason, and to save a couple of miles, we took the old PCT trail that follows the creek. It was a route strongly recommended by the PCT guidebook.  As a result, we crossed Agnes Creek high up in the valley, and a good thing, too, because the farther down you go, the bigger, scarier and roarier it gets.  The old PCT mostly travels through a SHADY (niiiiice on a hot day) forest of magnificent incense cedars and Douglas fir with glimpses of the high valley walls. 

But I have to be honest–there were sections of the trail where we literally had to fight our way through a tangle of bracken, thimbleberry, etc, and I got soaking wet from all the dew on the plants.  It felt good to stop every couple of hours for a rest and a snack, and the wet dew was actually a plus–it cooled us off a bit.   At the rest breaks, we put to use a “technique” we figured out recently.  We discovered that if we lay our packs on the ground, then lie down with our legs resting on the pack (sort of draped over it), oh boy, does it make our tired legs and feet feel good!

A lot of side creeks come down to join Agnes Creek, and some of them were quite sizable.   At each creek crossing,  somebody had installed a flattened log bridge.  I’m getting a lot braver about these, as long as they are wide enough.  We also saw a lot of bear scat and bear-clawed trees.  We stopped for lunch at Cedar Camp, next to a pretty cascade in Agnes Creek, then trudged on into a very hot afternoon (86 degrees in the shade).  The guidebook said the trail becomes a “rollercoaster” in the lower canyon–no kidding!  It was up and down, up and down, and pretty steep, too.  We were glad to rest by a pretty little waterfall on Pass Creek near Five Mile Camp, and glad that the trail was in FOREST on such a warm day!  I personally don’t do very well hiking in heat, and was looking forward to Stehekin and dinner.   The only food we had left in our packs was a bit of peanut butter and crackers.

Finally we reached the High Bridge, which soars 40 feet above now roaring whitewatering Agnes Creek, and hurried to the trailhead to catch the hiker bus.  But lo and behold, the trailhead bulletin board said that the road (washed out in 2003) was STILL not fixed, so we needed to walk over 2 miles farther on to Stehekin Valley Ranch.  I was so hot and so tired that this was megabummer news.  Our choices now were   1) Eat our peanut butter and crackers now and risk missing dinner at the Ranch  or  2) Mush on fast, even though we were very tired and hungry,  and hopefully make it to the Ranch in time for dinner.   Well, #2 won–we wanted a real DINNER!

So we pushed our tired legs as fast as they would go along the road through a very pretty valley.  The Stehekin River was roaring along next to us;  it is an amazing, beautiful blue-green color.  I have never seen a river like it.  We got to the washout section, and it was a mess!  Basically, the river decided it liked running down the road, and it still was.  I was all for wading right across and Bill vetoed that (he hates getting wet if he doesn’t HAVE to), so we had to climb up a steep bank to get around the washout section.  A deer was climbing the bank at the same time we were!  

At last we saw through the trees the green pastures of Stehekin Valley Ranch, where yes, dinner was being served–pork loin roast with all the trimmings, and lots of different kinds of pie.  It was all you can eat, and we ate till we could barely waddle, outside on the cookhouse porch.  (We figured we still smelled rather strongly of eau de trail, and the other guests would probably like to avoid sitting too close to us!)   Mr. Courtney, the Ranch owner, came out to talk to us, and encouraged us to stay at the Ranch instead of the motel in town.  For $60 a day each, we could get a real log cabin to stay in,  3 big meals, laundry, and free rides into town as often as we wanted.  The total of $120 for one day was a bit of “sticker shock”, but when we did the math, we realized that actually, it was a good deal when you factored in all the perks, especially 3 all you can eat meals.   Another guest was also eating out on the porch–a doctor from Texas, 70 years old, who was also out backpacking in the North Cascades.  He said he had never seen the flies and mosquitoes so bad as this year, and he did have a point.  I haven’t said much about the bugs lately, but they have been bad–flies especially, and those rascals BITE!  (though not as often as mosquitoes, thank goodness!  They sort of crawl around on you deciding where to bite, and that gives you plenty of time to swat them.)

So we agreed to stay at Stehekin Valley Ranch, and after our wonderful dinner, I did our laundry in the Ranch washing machine.  While the clothes were washing, I took a shower, then hung the laundry on the clothesline next to the horse pasture, figuring that the warm night breeze would dry them nicely.  The Ranch electricity al comes from a generator, so they hve no clothes dryer.  At 9:00 pm, the generator goes off, and so do all the lights, except the battery-powered ones.  We had a battery powered lamp available in our log cabin, as well as an oil lamp, but we didn’t use either of them–just went straight to bed!  “Tired” does not even begin to describe how we felt!

Wed. July 27      Miles today: 21.5        Total so far: 1,386.7         Washington Section K

Quite a wind came up during the night last night and we had to get up and restake the tarp so it was lower to the ground.  But the great thing about the wind was–it dried everything out!  All our wet socks (hung on the “clothesline” under the tarp), our wet pant legs (left draped over our packs) and EVEN our shoes, which had been soaking wet from the Napeequa River crossing late in the day–all of them were perfectly dry.  Wow!  What made me really grateful was remembering that the last time we had a scary river crossing (the Whitewater River in southern California), the same thing had happened–a warm wind blew all night and dried all our wet stuff, so that in the morning, we could put on clean, dry clothes and shoes.  I said it at the Whitewater River, and I don’t mind saying it again, “Lord, thankyou!  You take such good care of us!”  And this time it was especially amazing, because we’d camped in a meadow area, which normally means DEW at night. 

Rested and happy with dry clothes and feet, we headed down the rest of the Little Giant Pass trail, which was steep (I added plenty of “trek pole holes” to the collection of holes on both sides of the trail!) but not rocky, except for one stretch where the whole hillside is one big crumbling rock, and yu have to watch for ducks so you know where to go.  Then it was several miles to reach the Chiwawa River, which was indeed (as we’d been told) wide, but only ankle deep, but….where did the trail go on the other side?   We looked and looked and could not figure it out, so Bill and I both crossed, but Bill headed for one “potential trail continuation” and I headed for the other one.  Mine turned out to be right, and once I was there,  I stood and said, “Duuuuh, why didn’t I notice this from the other side? “–it was a whole row of “river crossing poles” neatly laid out in a row on the “beach”.  So to help future PCT Nobo’s like us, I put up a decent-size rock duck to help show them (from the other side of the river) where to go.

Then came a 4 mile gravel road walk to our next trailhead.  Along the way, we heard a very labored truck noise from behind us–turned out it was a very large pickup towing a big horse trailer loaded full of animals.  When we got to the trailhead, there they were–one horse and several mules, being loaded with canvas bales full of stuff for the trail repair crew working on the PCT!  We fervently thanked the very modest wrangler (“Aw, it’s nuthin–Forest Service pays me to do this”) and his helpers who were loading mules.  So off we went on our next-to-last leg of the PCT detour, which began with easy going through shady forest.  I was troubled, though, by the large numbers of little trees that were dead, and similar big trees whose tops were dead, too.  I don’t know what caused the problem.

The trail began to climb and have great mountain views.  It was basically up, up all morning.  We stopped to cook lunch well off-trail in case the mules came by, but they were a no-show.  On we climbed, into the afternoon, and at around 3:00, we stopped for our snack break.  The trail was so steep and narrow that we were sitting IN the trail munching on our Snickers, when along came the mule train!  “Wait a second!” we told the wrangler.  “We’ll get out of your way!”  There was a little creek close  by, running across the trail, so we grabbed our packs and halfeaten candy and rockhopped up the creek till we were well offtrail.  The mule trail got in gear and went steadily by, though some mules tried to grab a drink from the creek.  Finally they disappeared up the trail and we sat down again to finish our snack.

The trail continued to climb higher, and began to circle the head of Buck Creek Valley.  Now we could look back and see the grand valley we’d been walking up for so long.  Gorgeous!  Then when we reached the top of the pass, we once again had glorious views of Glacier Peak, and a bit further on, we could see down into the valley where the PCT was waiting for us!  We were determined to reach it, so we went down as fast as we could, even though it was the end of the day and we were pretty tired. Down through the mountain hemlock and heather, then into the cedar and fir we went, till finally there it was–a sign “PCT Detour End”!!! Hooray!   What a relief!   Now to find a campsite ASAP–it was really getting late!

We were on flat valley floor at this point, but it was full of bushes and dead fallen trees. So on we went to Miner’s Creek, where there was a backpacker campsite.  We were all sweaty and hot from the warm day, so brave Bill took a bath in the roaring creek.  It looked way too scary for me, so I settled for a “sloosh” with water bottle and bandana.  My knees were really sore from so much uphill and downhill the last few days.  The detour trail is undeniably tough.  But the scenery was fantastic, so I would say it was worth it.  Boy, did we need a rest in Stehekin!   We determined to reach it tomorrow.