Mile 2569.4 – 2583.7 Fireweed Campsite North Cascades National Park.

As we left Stehekin, we peered down at the Stehekin River from High Bridge. Below us in the shallows were Chinook salmon coming back home to spawn. I couldn’t help but see parallels between their journey and my own. We both have traveled a long way, overcome obstacles, and are very near the end of our journeys.

Like those salmon swimming upstream, there are still hurdles for us to overcome. But we can feel it in our bones, Canada is close. We have walked with dogged persistence and perseverance from the border with Mexico through heat and high water. Sometimes we wondered when and if we would ever finish, and sometimes we wished the trail would end.

Not 2 days ago, Bedazzled and I talked about how we were ready for the end. How we were ready to stop walking. But now that we have left our final town, had our final hitch, and entered our last National Park, we suddenly don’t feel so ready.

We have been in perpetual motion for the past four months. Walking twelve hours a day and sometimes more. Eating, drinking, and thinking while we walked. If we had horendous foot pain and inflamed tendons, we walked. If we were hungry and dehydrated, we walked. If we had no motivation, we walked. Walking was a salve to our literal and metaphorical wounds and problems.

I remember almost a year ago to the day, I was walking out of the Rainy Pass Trailhead parking lot along Highway 20 in Washington. A haggard and thoroughly soaked hiker was crossing the highway. He looked at me and asked if he was still on the PCT. I responded he was, and he kept on walking. I looked over my shoulder and saw his tent was strapped to the outside of his pack and drips of water were falling from it to the ground with each step. He must have had a miserable night, but there was something resolute in his gait. In his gaze, there was a flicker of something that I couldn’t define.

Tomorrow, I will be that hiker walking over Highway 20 through the Rainy Pass Trailhead parking lot. What I couldn’t define in that hiker’s gaze a year ago, I have come to understand. That resolute step was forged on the mountains and deserts of the Pacific Crest. That determined gaze was that of a man not 60 miles from the end of a 2,650 mile journey. That “certain something” was the confidence of having come this far no matter how bruised and battered one may be, but knowing that the end result is still not guaranteed. That was a man who had handled everything that had been thrown at him, but was still ready for anything that may be.

Tomorrow, I will be that man.

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