Hiking Dude Blog

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 52477 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 24 miles today.
8/13/17 We had thunder during the night and then real rain just after we packed up our things to start hiking.  So, we waited a bit for it to pass.  First rain in such a long time and a welcome drop in temperature. From our great temporary home in Northport, we crossed the mighty Columbia River and then hiked uphill on gravel roads most of the day.  We passed the Northport International Raceway where the races had kept us up late into the previous evening.  After that, we saw no people all day until reaching the Pierre Lake campground. But, we did see plenty of cows.  Throughout the day, we encountered small clusters of cattle on or along the path with well over 100 head in all. We got to herd a few for over two miles - they just kept walking down the road ahead of us.  This was all in the Colville forest, hence the subject line. The rain continued to mist most of the day but never really came down until after we set up our tent and were inside.  We did get to use our rain ponchos for quite a few hours. I was excited to see clouds at least 5 miles away this evening - because they were not hidden by smoke!

I walked 51390 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 25 miles today.
8/14/17 Roadwalk miles are much different than miles on trails.  Today's walk was completely on roads - paved, gravel, dirt, and primitive.  Since nothing exciting happened, I'm listing pros and cons for roadwalks. Roadwalks have no spider webs, able to walk side by side, an even tread and steady grade, easy to navigate, easier miles, straighter towards destination. Roads have traffic, dust, pavement is hard on legs, less shade We are camped along a creek by the road tonight. Oh, one interesting thing - we were getting water from a creek far up in the mountains and a guy came walking out of the woods. He was a forest service employee doing goshawk research. Very weird.

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.

8/15/17
Josh back in the saddle here to take over story time for this long day. Today started off same as most mornings on the trail: cold, dark, and early. Up in the mountains the temperatures dip surprisingly low at night, so i often find myself needing to throw on all my layers before getting too comfortable. But when we get hiking all those layers are removed to make up for the 50 degree difference in temperature. We are getting good at timing our morning routine so that we're all packed up by the time it's light outside, but only when I don't lay around for an extra 10 minutes. So we got up, bags and bottles full of nice cold water from the creek, and set out on our forest road walk to start the day. Within the first hour we came across our first mylar balloon of the thru-hike! You know, one of those lightweight, vinyl, helium-filled specialty balloons for birthdays or other celebrations. When you have one it's a blast to let it go and watch it float up up up and away as it turns into just a speck in the sky... But they eventually come down and land somewhere, and they last forever. This one still had helium and never popped so I tied it to my pack and hoped it would perk up a bit as the day warmed up and as we would gain altitude. With the balloon on my back helping to lift the load of my pack, we continued to the trailhead of the North Kettle Crest trail. The PNT hikers ahead of us have either followed this trail or have opted to take the alternate route that parallels the mountain ridge trail, but along a road at the foot of the mountains. Since the smoke had cleared out and we are ultimately here for the challenge of the opportunities to glimpse into the beauty that this portion of the country has to offer, we agreed to climb the mountain at the cost of difficult miles.

Before beginning our ascent, we passed by the forest service folks we met the other day who were coming in for another morning of counting and identifying northern goshawks in the area. We made it to the trailhead; the end of the road and the start of the trail. There was an empty forest service vehicle parked there, so we knew to keep our eyes and ears open for potential friends. And then we climbed. And climbed. And climbed and climbed and climbed. Eventually we made it to the top of Copper Butte - the highest altitude for the day. We discovered that we could get mobile data up there, so we took an hour break and played on social media for a bit and quickly re-realized that nothing happening on the internet was as interesting as what we were experiencing. While we were poking away at our gadgets we were unexpectedly subjected to an aerial bombardment of goshawks chasing each other near ground level, weaving and darting between the thin foliage (and us) atop the mountain. We didn't know what they were at first, all we heard was the rush of wind as they whizzed by sounding like fighter jets.

By this time the Mylar balloon had been expanding under the heat of the sun all morning and was flying high. And as cool as it would've been to let it go and watch it float away into a speck over the horizon, I just couldn't bring myself to let it go. So we poked a hole in it and I inhaled the yucky old tasting helium and said things in high pitched voices and got dizzy and packed the trash in my bag. On our way across the ridgeline we met the forest service crew that was working with white bark pine trees across a transect (a line of trees) that had been established 13 years ago for data collection. The crew consisted of 3 ladies with tons of gear that they had hauled up the mountain, and they showed us a spot of cankers that they had found growing on one of the trees. We continued our hike along with our water slowly depleting as we knew it would without any water sources along our route. We eventually made it to our campsite just off of US 20 where a random lady in her car was leaving and informed us that she'd just seen a baby black bear in the area. We set up our tent anyways, ate dinner calories, and dove back into some Netflix episodes saved on my phone as a reward for another successful day.

I walked 49450 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 20 miles today.
8/15/17

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 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 40992 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 18 miles today.
8/16/17 Some days, the hike isn't as fun as what happens after the hike.  Today, we woke to see our first real sunrise.  Every other day, we've been shadowed by mountains and don't see the sun until it breaches the ridge line.  Today, camping on an East/West pass, we were up and moving just as the bright orange globe came up. After that, we had 17 miles of dodging traffic on us20 into Republic.  Once we reached town, we loved the old West look most of the downtown buildings had.  We stopped at Anderson's grocery (wonderful store!) and resupplied for our 4 day walk to Oroville. We then walked the mile to where we'd be staying the night. Prior to arriving, I had been in contact with a local trail angel to see about staying there. I had no idea that Artie and Mike McRae were world famous for their hospitality but we soon found out why they were! They gave us permission to stay at their home, have showers, do laundry, and eat anything from their fridge - all before they got home from a trip. We did all but the last. Then Artie roped a friend into driving us into town to get food for dinner. Rob was a great guy, too! The next morning, we finally got to meet the McRae's as we were all getting ready to go to our respective 'work'. Just super great people and a wonderful night off the trail.

I walked 56760 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 23 miles today.
8/17/17 We left the Cowville (Colville) forest a couple days ago and entered the O-cow-nogan (Okanogan) forest today.  I had no idea how many cows are free range grazing out there!  We got to herd cows again but this time they also raised a huge cloud of dust along the trail.  At the end of the day, our water source is a small pond that we chased the cows from.  Its still yellow after filtering, but a little crystal light covers any taste.  We did walk .5 miles farther looking for a spring on the map but it was just a muddy area trampled with cow prints. Besides the cows and deep dust, the climb and ridge walk out of Sweat Creek was a good hike.  Once we got up on the hills, we could see for miles today.  Smoke was practically gone and mountains way off on the far horizon were visible.