Day 148: Game Plan Devised

September 14, Day 148: 2572.9-2584.1

Miles Hiked: 11.2

Gratitude of the Day: I’m thankful for small towns like Stehekin, it’s a place I want to visit again and could even live in some day. 

I woke up around 6:30, gathered my dirty laundry and headed to the public shower/laundry facility. I was first there and took a glorious 7 and a half minute hot shower and then threw my stinky clothes in the washer. All my electronics are charged and it was just last minute chores to complete, and waiting on the Stehekin post office to open at 10am so I could get the resupply box I had mailed myself from Portland. Going through my box I was happy “Past Brandon” had bought things that I had forgotten I had sent.  As usual I had sent too much food, but that’s ok I’d rather have too much than not enough. I packed up my bag and headed to wait for the shuttle out of town, the rest of the group had made it in and were working on their chores as well. Having gotten in early was such a relief and reduced the stress of the day for me.

At 2pm I got on the shuttle that takes you back to trail, it stopped at the Stehekin Bakery Company this amazing pastry store. I got a huge cinnamon roll, spring rolls with peanut sauce and a chicken bacon ranch pizza croissant thing that was amazing. The shuttle dropped a huge herd of us hikers back to trail and at 3:30 I started the 23 mile climb out of the Stehekin Valley. I wanted to get a good portion of the climb done so the plan is to get to a campsite in about 12 miles. About 5 miles in Cool Cat and Clancy were stopped along the trail and were talking about a game plan to get to the border. The weather forecast looks good for the next two days, but on Friday on it’s rain and in the upper elevation it’s supposed to have some snow. That sounds miserable to hike in so us three devised a plan. We’d do the 11 today, tomorrow we’ll push 29 miles, Thursday a 26 and then set ourselves up 14.7 miles from the Canadian border. We’ll set up camp there, slack pack to the border leaving our camp set up. Hike 14.7 miles to the border and then back making it nearly a 30 mile day on Friday, finishing the PCT. Then we have to hike back to Harts Pass on Saturday but we’d only leave 16 miles that day. So we’ll see how this plan comes to fruition. Hopefully the weather holds and we’ll have some views and beautiful days.