Hiking Dude Blog

I walked 46589 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 23 miles today.
It was still warm when we woke this morning, not chilly as days past. We did our usual pop tarts and water and stayed walking down the gravel road. Less than a mile in, we saw two dogs beside the road. One was all black and the other was grey. They watched us walk toward them until one sauntered into the woods and the other scampered across to the other side of the road and into the trees. They made no noise and we saw nothing more of them except their tracks in the dust for another mile. So, they could have been feral dogs but they were not coyotes and I think they were big enough to have been wolves. Sorry, no pictures. The rest of the day was a long roadwalk on pavement to Northport. We did met a couple nice ladies riding bicycles and they chatted with us. Another woman stopped and offered us a ride to Northport saying everyone else was skipping this awful roadwalk. She sounded like a drug dealer trying to convince us - 'come on, just try it'. :-) And, we found and explored a tunnel chiseled into the hillside with a water pipe running out of it. Creepy! Especially the rodent we ran into. The road was very hot and smoky - surprise! And this one had No Trespassing signs everywhere. We had to slip past an abandoned house to get water from a small creek. 109 cars passed us so that added a little excitement throughout the day. Upon reaching Northport, a lady in a pickup said HI and asked if we were hiking the PNT. I asked if she knew if there was a place liked the city park where we might put up or tent. She directed is to see Sandy in Tony's Grocery. Tony's has a good selection for resupply and Sandy was very nice. She set us up with a tent spot, bathroom, and even WiFi for the evening. Our hiking day finished around 3:30 but once again we find ourselves moving faster than expected and getting to Republic a day early doesn't help us. Tomorrow looks like more road, but the forecast is for a drop of about 15 degrees!

I walked 56316 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
We got up early to start our 5200 foot elevation gain up Abercrombie Mountain over 16 miles, hoping to reach the top before the hot afternoon. Abercrombie is the 2nd highest peakin eastern Washington. A mile out of town, I realized I had forgotten the plastic sheet for under our tent.  While Josh waited with our packs, I went back for it. Water was plentiful up the hill until a water cache at the trailhead.  We topped off there and then had about 10 miles over the top and down the other side with nothing but dust and rocks.  Good thing we filled up! The top of the mountain was super. We left our packs and climbed the spur trail to the very summit. Walking on the loose rock sounded like you were walking on pieces of broken ceramic tiles. There was also the foundation of an old lookout. Coming down, there were 18 full switchbacks back and forth across the hillside baked in the afternoon sun and smoke. When we finally hit Silver Creek at the bottom, we called it a day, got water, and set up camp in a nice, free campground with pit toilet and picnic tables.

8/10/17 We slept in and then spent the day getting ready for our next 6 day section.  The Falls Market has plenty of food to resupply.  If they offered flavored tuna pouches, it would have been perfect. I figure I ate around 6000 calories today, food bought at the market and a pizza shared with Josh at the 5th Street Lounge for dinner.  Nothing is inexpensive but it is a small town. We also washed our clothes in just water in a bucket and walked down to the river to cool off in the afternoon. In the evening, we chatted with Mary again until it was time for us to turn in.  A very nice day in Metaline Falls.

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I walked 55250 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 28 miles today.
Josh didn't think we'd do it but with nothing but long easy roadwalk and no place to stop due to private property and encroaching forest fires, we walked all the way to trail angel Mary's place in Metaline Falls. The excitement of the day was watching the Noisy Creek forest fire burning just across Sullivan Lake in the afternoon. The smoke got so bad we put on our bandanas and they actually helped with the irritation. We are tenting at Mary's and got to chat with her a long time this evening. She is great and had many wonderful stories, from her CDT hike as a 16 year old to the history of the 115 year old building she lives in. Now, it's late but I get to sleep in tomorrow as we're taking a rest day here.

I walked 54760 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 27 miles today.
8/8/17 Today was just a long walk on dirt and gravel forest roads over the mountains to avoid the trail closures due to fires.  Not too difficult, but quite dusty, especially when logging tricks came by.  We saw no footprints along the roads so we might be the only ones to do this detour - we'll check when we reach town. We did get to snack on huckleberries and thimbleberries, and I tried some other purple berry.  Really the only excitement for today was a wrong turn that added a couple bogus miles but allowed us to herd cattle down the road for awhile.  Oh, and we saw a dead squirrel in the road. We quit early in the day at a nice campsite by a creek and have about 30 miles to Metaline Falls but distances are pretty vague out here. Smoke continues to fill the air and today smelled like campfires and ash, and anything over a half mile away was hidden.

I walked 57300 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 27 miles today.
8/7/17 To make up for the last two days of big climbs, today was almost all downhill or gently rising. The day started with snacking on huckleberries as we walked and spooked two elk off the trail.  Early on, our trail crossed a road and stopped.  Our app, map, and book made no note of walking the road or tricky turn so (after searching up and down the road for any clues) we plunged down the steep forested hillside knowing we would eventually run into the trail on a road below us. It worked and only cost a few scratches. The rest of the trail was very nice and mellow, passing along Priest Lake and through a huge old cedar forest.  To keep up with Josh, I got stung in the back of my head - man that hurts! We met a trail crew putting in a boardwalk.  We also met a couple on the shore of Priest Lake and chatted with them awhile. Now, we are on the roadwalk from Hades.  There is a large fire burning that has closed the PNT and its alternate routes.  So, we are doing some 50 or 60 mile detour to reach Metaline Falls.  The roads are all dust and there has been plenty of cough cough traffic.  One very nice logger slowed way down and said hi as he passed. Around 1pm we crossed a wonderful looking river so we stopped for about 45 minutes to eat, get water, skip rocks and rinse off.  It was great! But cold!  A very strange man stopped his pickup on the bridge and began a conversation with us about how the world is pretty much going down the toilet. He finally left. As our feet were dragging and my knees were aching, we found a spot to camp.  Right on the creek across from the dusty road and there is the strangest Shoe Tree here.  For some reason, there are hundreds of shoes thrown into an old burned cedar tree.  Weird. The smoke is very bad and bits of ash rained on us at times. And, we crossed into Washington this afternoon!

I walked 46800 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 14 miles today.
8/6/17 Our day started with a 600ft climb up from pyramid lake to the end of the trail - literally.  From there we navigated 6 miles with no real trail - it was very slow difficult going but a wonderful experience!  Except for the fact that Josh got stung by some nasty bee or wasp on his leg. This is Josh lagging the way with no trail to follow. At the end, we came to a creek that flowed over solid rock, making a natural water slide.  We decided to spend an extra 45 minutes playing here because it was so cool.  As we hiked down a couple miles and neared the trailhead, we encountered dozens of people hiking up.  It turns out that there are some VERY popular water slides lower on the creek. Refreshed from our swim, our afternoon entailed a 3300ft climb up Lookout Mountain - on a dusty old overgrown atv track on the hot south side with little shade.  I sweated the whole way but we were fortunate to have 3 nice water sources on the way up so staying hydrated was not a problem.  Also, halfway up the climb a juvenile eagle took off from the path no more than 10 yards in front of us.  He flew right past us and sailed down the trail - very cool! Every day my shirt and pants are soaked with sweat.  Today, we reached our campsite so late they had no time to dry.  I'll try drying them as we hike tomorrow. Our camp was at a small lake at the source of Lucky Creek. We were lucky to find it. Our maps, our app, and our data book had no help in figuring out where the trail was and how to find the camp.  I was just lucky (after spending a lot of time on dead ends) to notice a small side trail and give it a try.  The location was a beautiful end to a great day of hiking.

I walked 61700 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 24 miles today.
8/5/17 We had the option of hiking the PNT route or an alternate today.  The choice was between a 17 mile climb up a burned out, bone dry ridge or a 24 mile climb along a creek in a shaded forest - we took the longer route and that made all the difference. From the Kootenai River at 1700 feet, we hiked uphill all day to Pyramid Pass at 6700 feet before dropping down a bit to camp at Pyramid Lake.  So, today was a long mile+ of elevation gain but the campsite was beautiful.  Right by a high alpine lake with trout jumping and a 700 foot rock wall as a backdrop was a perfect place for our little shelter. The forest was a nice cedar and pine refuge from the heat of the day and we had no problem with finding water. We met one couple that was hiking the trail for two days, and a large group of about 10 people had filled the main campsite at the lake. The smoke wasn't too bad today and the moon and stars were very nice in the night.

I walked 12640 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 5 miles today.
8/4/17 Josh's friend drove us from Lutherhaven to our trail head above Bonner's Ferry late in the evening and we just road walked to the Kootenai River levy and threw down our tent. Waved to a few farmers as we walked but that was it. The sun was blood red as it set from all the forest fire smoke and the nearly full moon rose a bright orange.