A few months back my dad proposed a hiking trip that required Gus and I to participate. My dad wanted to hike the Pacific Crest Trail through the North Cascades but he didn't want to have to make a return trip back to the car....so Gus and I had the job of parking his car up in Canada, and he would park our car off Highway 20 in Washington. Then we would each have one way trips and somewhere we would cross paths. Gus picked me up from work Sunday night and we headed up near beautiful Hope, BC and started our hiking in the dark. We made it in about 2 miles, set up camp near a river, and attempted to sleep. Unfortunately we are both so bony we can't get comfortable even with thermarests so no sleep for us.
Day 2 we think we woke up around 5 am (we have no idea since neither of us wear watches) and hit the trail. We stopped and admired the US border which is essentially a 10 feet wide clearcut of trees for miles and miles...and pondered how different it must look from the Mexico/US border. We made it to the first pass where we stopped to have lunch, and Stevie Ray decided to make our trip more interesting by rolling in Human Feces. He really likes to get covered in it, so he came back to show us his new color while we were eating lunch. Gus had the brilliant idea of cleaning him by having him roll over, then grabbing him by the legs and rubbing him in tall grass. It took care of the obvious substance, but not the smell. But, props to Gus for good thinking. All in all we hiked about 20 miles on day 2 to Woody Pass where we found a nice alpine camping spot full of bear feces and paw prints.
Day 3 we wake up to freezing rain which quickly turned into snow, but fortunately bears didn't eat our food. We hit the trail and made it to Holman Pass where we were supposed to wait for my parents if we hadn't already seen them. Well we waited for maybe 20 minutes and then decided that we would try to find them on the trail since we now realized at our pace we could sleep in our own beds rather than rolling around in agony all night. Jimi had a stand off with a pack of horses which fortunately ended well and a few miles later my parents were found. They were a little shocked that we had covered 27 miles in the time they had covered 9...but then again they were packing steaks, scotch, wine, a grill, and.....pre-mixed margaritas. Typical. We traded keys and headed on our way. The last 3 miles of the hike were probably the most grueling with relentless switch backs and steep elevation gain. I began to worry about Gus's sanity when he started talking about harnessing anti-gravity and giving me the double finger. But we made it, and we have two dogs who have never been more tired in their whole lives.
US/Canada Border
View from Hopkins Pass
Looking down on Hopkins Lake
Campsite #2 near Woody Pass
Looking up from campsite #2
Gus relaxing with doggies
Random mountain peak somewhere in N. Cascades
The never tired Stevie Ray
Jimi Bean feeling the pain
