Mile 2583.7 Fireweed Campsite North Cascades National Park – 2609.6 Glacier Pass.

I curled up in my sleeping bag as I heard my alarm go off. I was wearing my puffy jacket, my hood was up, and my buff was pulled up to my nose. It had been a cold night and it was a colder morning. The idea of changing into my hiking clothes, which still hadn’t dried out yet, wasn’t appealing. If I thought it was cold, needless to say Bedazzled thought it was downright frigid. I didn’t move as my second alarm went off two minutes later. “We only have three more days left. We can sleep in a little bit,” I thought. I didn’t need to check with Bedazzled because I swear that girl would never move if I didn’t.

At 6:00, I began the painfully cold process of changing out of my thermals and into my running shorts and hiking shirt. It made me want to take back all the things I said yesterday about not wanting the journey to be over. “I could do without this  morning routine,” I thought as I ran around packing up camp. Bedazzled could see that I was serious about moving on and started to stir.

After one mile, we said goodbye to North Cascades National Park, but the cold stayed with us. My guess as to why it was so cold is that all the wamth of the previous day had disapated into the cloudless sky and cold air had settled into the bottom of the valley we had camped in. As we walked among the trees, we waited for the sun to crest the surrounding mountains and shine down on us.

After about five miles, we came to the Rainy Pass Trailhead parking lot. This was the spot almost a year ago today that I saw a bedraggled PCT thru-hiker come across the road soaked from the previous night’s rain. He asked me if he was still on the PCT and I responded that he was. What he didn’t know was that he had trail magic waiting for him at the end of the parking lot. I told Bedazzled the story and as we walked down the road to the parking area, we both hoped to find some trail magic waiting for us, but we were sadly disappointed. All we had were maps from the Forests Service warning all hikers that the road through Hart’s Pass was closed as were all the trails to the east of the PCT due to the Diamond Creek Fire. What a let down.

As we started to climb to Cutthroat Pass, the sun started to cast pools of sunlight on the trail and we took some solace in that. As we continued on, we passed a Forest Service employee who was walking part of the trail from Rainy Pass making sure hikers had updated information on the fire and potential return/bailout routes. Bedazzled told me I should get a job like that and I didn’t think it was a bad idea. If they would let me take photos too, it might be perfect.

The mountains today reminded me a little of the mountains from the desert. I suppose it makes sense since we are on the eastern side of the Cascades and they receive less precipitation than the wetter western side, which gets hit by weather coming off the Pacific.

We made it to Glacier Pass, which was a few miles less than we planned, but given the late start it was actually a decent day.
Both Bedazzled and I can’t believe we only have one more night on trail. It doesn’t seem like the end is really that near. We have already bought bus tickets to Vancouver and plane tickets back to Los Angeles. Life after the trail has slowly been creeping into our thoughts these past few days. I think we are both ready to put an end to the long days of walking, but not the living outside and simpler style of life we have had out here. Simple though it may be, it seems like we can easily find value, meaning, and joy out here. It wasn’t always so easy to do so in the lives and lifestyles we left behind. The slow and deliberate life may not be all that bad.