It’s hard to believe, but I’m almost done with this trail! Only 50 more miles to go until I hit the northern terminus (the trail doesn’t actually go all the way to Canada, it stops about a tenth of a mile from the border. Why? Who knows…)
So far the trail has been a lovely hike through warm/humid/buggy forests, with the occasional climb up a rock and a nice view. The hike has been good, except for 1 day of decent rain, but I just so happened to be near tettegouche state park with their amazing visitors center (complete with places to sit, wifi, and a little coffee bar, what more do you need?!?). So I made the executive decision to NOT slog all day in the rain and instead sit in that visitor center and watch YouTube videos for the entire day. It was 100% the right decision 🙃
Tettegouche state parkThe foggy day *after* the rainy day. I always do love me some foggy hiking days, they are simply the best 🥰Lilly’s island. It’s a cute little place to stop for a few minutes Hunter’s rock and the view of some lake, I wanna say lake Agnes? Could be wrong, there were a lot of lakes in this areaOne of my favorite parts of this trail are these rivers! They carve these impressive gorges out of the rock and just aren’t something I expected to find in MN! Do you enjoy steep (but relatively short) climbs up to a big rock to get a view of a seemingly neverending expanse of trees? Then the SHT might just be the trail for you! All thru hikers will recognize this! Normally, this is what we call “trail magic” a cooler parked near a road filled with cold sodas, fruit, snacks, etc – all to help make a tired, hungry hiker’s day a little bit better. The sad part of this photo is that this cooler was not in fact trail magic, but was instead a cooler with a broken wheel that someone abandoned on their way to a campsite (it was filled with water bottles, uncooked bacon, etc, and was clearly someone’s camp food). That’s the saddest day ever when the excitement of trail magic turns into utter disappointment.
Just in case anyone is curious… I was definitely contemplating being done with my hiking for the summer, but then decided that I needed one more. Just one more hike. I swear I’m not an addict, I can stop anytime, I just need one more hit, I mean hike 🙃 So I’m planning to hike…
I was ready to be done with the horribleness of California, but I wasn’t ready to be done with the PCT, so I compromised and decided to downgrade myself from “thru-hiker” to “section-hiker”. So I jumped up to Cascade Locks to hike Washington. Both the Sierras and Washington are some of the absolute best hiking…
Washington is amazing!! I’m so glad that I made the decision to pop up to Cascade Locks and hike north from there, for lots of reasons: First, Washington is gorgeous, this is some of the best hiking on the PCT! Also, it’s actually a relief to become a section hiker, I just feel so much…
Made it to Tahoe!! These last 3 days were grueling but oh so beautiful… In the Sierras I got into a pattern, hike to a major pass and then back down to a valley. It was basically a daily occurrence and made it easy to fall into a rhythm. Well, I don’t have that anymore,…
I don’t even remember my last post, was it from Stevens pass? Seems like so long ago even though I know it was only a few days. Anyway, I started hiking with a group of other north-bound section hikers who were finishing up their PCT hikes from previous years, so we all decided to get…
We’re getting close to the end! The past couple of days on the trail have actually been rainy, that’s really the first time this entire summer that I’ve had to hike in the rain, which is pretty amazing! Otherwise it’s just been a lot of lovely beach walking and meeting new friends. There was one…
Great pictures again!