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.
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…
I am quickly learning that this trail is beautiful, but also requires a much higher level of planning than I am used to. For example, campsites are not very common and tend to be a hiker/biker sites at state parks or campsites at private RV parks. Well, I got to cannon beach last night intending…
Made it to Stevens Pass… This section of the trail is absolutely gorgeous! I really enjoyed it, of course it was a lot of constant elevation gains and drops, but once you got to the views it was oh so worth it. And all of the snow is gone (at least trail snow), so there…
After a wonderful couple of days relaxing and hanging out with friends in Bellingham, I now find myself just outside of Duluth starting down the Superior hiking trail. It’s almost a little jarring to me how quickly I’m moving from one thing to the next, but yet here I am hiking in Minnesota 🤷♀️ There’s…
Travis is not doing well. It’s the heat, the neverending sunshine that leads to blistering hot days climbing up and down these mountains. I can’t remember the last time I even saw a cloud. It’s slowly wearing me down and making me wonder why I’m out here when every day is miserable 😞 I still…
Great pictures again!