More pictures from the end.

Day 139 10/1 23mi.

WE DID IT!!!!!! We made it to Canada!! After 135 days of hiking and 4 zero days we completed our journey from the Mexican border to the Canadian border!!

Chatterbox,  Dr. Huss, and I woke up and got moving around 8 it was another crystal clear day. We walked separately for the first 7.5 miles until we reached the high point of the day at 7000 feet. We all met up there and walked the last 7 miles to the border together. Just before the monument we got a good view of about 10 foot wide line cleared through the woods. So we knew that was the border and we were almost there. The three of us walked across the line into Canada together.

The best way I can think of to describe ariving at the border is a bittersweet feeling. It felt great to have completed our goal that we have been working towards for 4 1/2 months. But it also felt quite sad for the trip to be coming to an end. We had a lot of fun this summer, we had a ton of great experiences and met a lot of great people along the way. It was time for the trip to end and we're both glad we didn't have to deal with much cold, rain, or snow storms through Washington, or for that matter the trip in general. We've both been looking forward to getting home as well though, we can't wait to see everyone from back home. I can't wait to start a new chapter in my life with my beautiful finance.

We both feel really lucky to have had this great experience and want to thank everyone who helped us along the way, whether it was a ride to town, sending us food, giving us encouragement, or anything else, we wouldn't have been able to do it without all the support.

The trip as well as this blog are dedicated to our father who always encouraged us to spend time outside, exercise, travel, push ourselves, and have fun with life. He taught us to love nature and this trip likely would have never happened if it wasn't for him. He is also the reason I kept this blog he would have loved the idea of this. So thank you pops, this one was for you!

I hoped you all enjoyed reading about our adventures and looking at our pictures.

Day 138 9/30 25mi.

Today was our last full day on trail, we should be finishing up tomorrow. We woke up today to a crystal clear day. There was no smoke or clouds in the air, and it was an excellent day for it. We spent most of the day walking up high above the trees, there were spectacular views of rugged mountains in every direction.

This morning we passed the last road before Canada so there were a lot of day hikers out. We stopped for a snack while at the road and a woman came over and gave Chatterbox,  Dr. Huss, and I two peaches!!

We stayed up high for most of the rest of the day and camped in spme trees near a small spring.

Day 137 9/29 24mi.

It started drizzling on us in the middle of the night, Chatterbox woke me up and we both set up our tents as quick as we could and went bacl to sleep.

Luckily it wasn't raining when we got up but our tents were soaked. We spent some time hiking up high above the trees today, the views were blocked a bit by low clouds. We moved along quickly today and got to camp by 6:30, which is really early for us.

We made a campfire to hang out around and cooked smores that Dr. Huss brought out and was nice enough to share with us.

Day 136 9/28 17mi.

We woke up got our packs all ready to go and then went over and stuffed ourselves full of breakfast. The three of us caught the 11:15 bus out of town we made a stop at the bakery to pick people up so we ran in and got a few more things for lunch. There were 17 hikers on the bus back out as well, the trail was crowded heading out of town.

Chatterbox and I went on farther than we planned because there were no campsites around. We finally gave up looking for a used site and cowboy camped in small flat area right next to the trail.

Still more pictures from 9/27

More pictures from 9/27

Day 135 9/27 3.5mi.

Chatterbox, Dr. Huss, and I got up and started moving by about 7 in order to catch a bus into the town of Stehekin, Washington. We got to the bus stop almost an hour early as it picks up at 9, as we sat there more and more hikers kept showing up. By the time the bus came there were 17 hikers ready to board! We didn't realize how many people were around us.

Stehekin is a town only accessible by float plane, boat, or hiking. It is located on the north side of a huge lake, the lake has huge mountains rising steeply out of the water on the east and west sides. There are about 80 residents and only one main road and a couple small side roads. The vehicles all get acoss the lake on a barge type thing, which is pushed by a boat.

The bus picked us up about 10 miles out of town and stopped at a bakery on the way in. All the hikers got off at the bakery, any time we told someone along the trail we were headed to Stehekin they said we had better go to the bakery. Everyone was looking forward to it and the bakery lived up to all the hype, it was the best bakery we have ever been to!!!

After loading up on pastries at the bakery we decided to walk the two miles into the main part of town. Along the way we stopped at a placed called The Garden where an older man geows tons of organic vegtables and fruit, he also had honey and goat chesse and yogurt. We got lots of fresh fruit and I asked for a carrot so he went out to the field and picked me one right out of the ground! We continued our walk into town along the lake and stopped near a dock where Dr. Huss and I dove in.

We made it town to the maon part of town, grabbed our resupply packages from the tiny post office and sat in front of the little store and restaurant overlooking the lake and got our packs organized along with about 20 other hikers, we kinda took over the town. The only way to contact the outside world was via a satellite phone provided by the park service, the town is right along side North Cascades National Park, there is usually a line for the one phone between the locals driving in to make a call and all the hikers.

The guy we've been hiking with father booked us a room at the lodge so we got all clean up then went for a great meal, hung out for a bit and called it a night.

Day 134 9/26 25mi.

The morning started by walking along 2 miles of the old PCT route which was a bit over grown, but passed through an old growth forest filled with massive trees that were probably 6 or 700 years old. We finished the old route by crossing an even bigger river over a log about 6 or 7 feet above the water. It was the gnarliest log crossing of the trip by far!

After lunch we hiked almost non stop for 5 hours and put in about 15 miles before getting into camp just after dark. Along the way we got some great views of a deep gorge that the creek we were walking along formed. I also saw a Pine Marten just before dark, it's kind of a mix between a weasel and a squirrel. We caught a pretty spectacular sunset through the trees as well.

More pictures from 9/25

Day 133 9/25 21.5mi.

We started going even higher up in the morning to about 7000 feet. There were great views again today without much smoke.

Just after we crested the high point on the trail and started back down we walked past a pretty good sized lake still frozen over for the most part!! It was kinda in a bowl facing north so the sun never hit it to well, that was something exciting and unexpected!

We made sure to take lunch in a spot with sun nearby so we could lay out our tents and sleeping bags to dry, they got quite wet from the thick fog the night before.

Near the end of the day we got to a junction of an old PCT route that required two log crossings over gushing rivers. Or a new PCT route over a brand new bridge that had just been constructed last summer. We chose the old more exciting route over the log crossings. We did the first crossing, which wasn't to bad, as it was getting dark and then camped right next to the river for the night.

Day 132 9/24 25mi.

We got up early and started hiking around Glacier Peak today. We saw quite a few other hikers today both section and thru-hikers.

Our hike brought us up high today, above tree line and luckily it wasn't to smokey so we got some excellent views of Glacier Peak and the surrounding mountains.

At one point today the trail took us down low to an area that had gone through intense flooding in 2003 and 2005. Along the creeks there were old bridges lying half in the creek half out and tons of trees knocked down. Luckily it was long enough ago that the trail had been all repaired and re-routed where need be.

The last two miles of the day were straight up and a thick fog rolled in just as the sun went down and we got into camp.

Day 131 9/23 20mi.

Our tents got quite wet last night from a light rain/thick fog. So it took us a while to get moving in the morning.

The fog and smoke cleared up pretty well and we got some good views today. We got a chance to dry our tents and sleeping bags at lunch. We made it to mile 2500 today!!!! We camped next to a creek for the night.

Day 130 9/22 8.5mi.

We woke up to a strong but short wind storm, it started raining pine needles, it was 6 when the wind woke us up so we just started our morning then. We got moving quick and walked 4.5 miles up the backside of a ski mountain and then back down the front side of the ski hill to a large highway.

While standing there hitching tons of empty mini vans and trucks passed without stopping. But finally a woman with two children a huge dog and tons of luggage stopped and rearranged her whole mini van to squish the three of us in there. They were headed to Seattle for awhile to get out of the smoke their town was clouded in.

We got down to the tiny town of Baring by about 9:30 and all got big cups of coffee and some breakfast from the only building in town, it was a combined cafe, store, and post office.

Then we headed a quarter mile to the Dinsmore's place, trail angels, the first thing we did was shower and get our laundry going. When we arrived there were about 10 other hikers there and more kept coming in throughout the day. They said that today was the most hikers they've had at once.

After resupplying and catching up with other hikers we headed back to the main road to start hitch hiking. After about a half hour a pickup with a camper on the back passed by then turned around and came back to pick us up. Dr. Huss, Chatterbox and I got back to the trail at about 6 and hiked the 4 miles to the first campsite.