Walk About Martinez -- A Stop in Stehekin

The last mountains on the Pacific Crest Trail before reaching Canada are the North Cascades, a jumble of volcanoes and granite, glacially carved peaks and valleys, covered in the green of cedar rain forests at the lower elevations and slim spruce and fir at timberline.  Its hillside meadows bloom with the most intense wild flower displays to be found anywhere in the lower 48. The views are unparalleled.   

When I walked through Washington last year on my thru hike of the PCT, I missed much of it due to rain and cloud, so I hiked it again this year with my friend Richard and we were blessed with unseasonably gorgeous weather for three weeks of backpacking.  The last hundred miles of trail were only marred by the smoke of distant wildfires which clouded the atmosphere during the day, but gave us incredible morning and evening color. 

We began our day, 9-7-11 at 3:45am to make it to High Bridge and a scheduled bus into Stehekin, the little resort town at the far end of Lake Chelan, accessible only by boat, seaplane or foot.  It was a ten mile walk into town without the bus, and as we were picking up our last resupply boxes there, and badly wanted a steak and a shower -- in that order -- we hoofed it on down twenty-two miles of trail, making it to the bus stop by 1pm.  No muss, no fuss, I was learning that Richard had the metal and the grace, for long distance hiking.

He and I have backpacked together before.  Each of those trips had been with other people however, and of relatively short duration, a week at most.  So even though we were co-workers and friends for 30 years in the Contra Costa County Probation Department, we still weren’t quite sure how it would be, on trail together for three weeks.  By our final push to the border, we had come to realize that we were great trail partners.  Easy going and quick on the morning pack up, neither of us had even once come to blame or anger, always a possibility when things go wrong on trail.  Richard’s steady pace helped me keep from killing myself with too much mileage, and I was able to meet my goal of hiking it all more slowly than last year, when we routinely hit twenty-eight to thirty-two mile days in Washington.  

There is something about trail people, folks drawn to the wilderness, that makes for pleasant companionship.  The saying is, “I’ve never met anyone I didn’t like above 10,000 feet.”   It’s true for me so far.  People in the woods are often a cut above, and Richard was just that.  I was lucky and grateful he was crazy enough to have wanted to hike 360 miles with me across Washington.  

Then there was Jackass.  I had met him and his gal, Molasses on my second day of hiking from the Mexican Border last year.  These are obviously their trail names, he admits to not being a very nice person sometimes off trail and she is slower than molasses in January.  He’s a lover of Beat poetry and one of the best natural writers and most well read long distance hikers I know.  I saw them again this year at the PCT Kick Off at Lake Morena in April and we renewed the friendship.  He’s a rough kind of guy who has come up through the school of hard knocks to become a chef who loves his time in the wilderness.  I was looking forward to seeing both of them again.  On the edge of North Cascades National Park, the Stehekin Lodge, where they both worked, was the perfect place for a couple who love the wild.   

Jackass had attempted the PCT this year and was knocking out 40 mile days in June across the snowy High Sierra, (that just makes my head spin) when he was injured, frostbitten and just plain beat up by the experience and had to leave trail to recover.  On our only evening in Stehekin, I stayed up way past “hiker midnight” -- usually 7pm -- to catch up and hear a hair raising tail of two bouts with giardia, possible permanent damage to the nerves in his feet caused by wearing micro spikes week after week over the deep snow, and finally frostbite.  No one can tell a story like Jackass, especially in print and he needs to write this one down.  But to give you a taste of his writing, with his permission, I’ve included his story of our first meeting last year not far north of the Mexican Border.  You very rarely get another person’s view of me, Shroomer, your humble writer.  

“Meeting The Shroomer: So my gal and I are beboppin along on our first full day on the trail, full of energy and excitement, when we round a corner and find a fella sittin by himself under a tree, bare chested, crosslegged and smiling like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. This dark haired Buddha under his bodi tree raised a hand, broadened his smile even further and called out to us, "hey! how ya doin? my name's 'Shroomer'."

“My first reaction to this was, "wow, second day on the trail and I might have already found some magic shrooms. Man I love Cali!" So I inquired if he had any ta share with a hiker down on his luck. Hell, with as much as this man was grinning who could blame me for the faux pas.

“When he informed me that now a days he only hunted shrooms of the non-magical kind, I do believe that he was truly disappointed that he couldn't oblige. It wasn't because he hadn't brought any drugs but because he's such a nice guy and was sooooo happy to be on the trail that he couldn't bear to see my crest fallen expression.

“Being a chef, I quickly found other mushroom questions to ask and the conversation shifted to a less awkward flow. I soon realized that this meeting was well made and not diminished in the least for lack of psychedelics.

“When folks tell ya that you will meet the smartest, hippest, coolest people in the world on the PCT, they're talkin about hikers like Shroomer! It's a pleasure knowing ya brother."

A bit of self aggrandizement I know, but he said it.  Some of the stories he’s told on the PCT List are simply fall down laughing funny, and if he put himself to it, he’d be published.  He’s got a natural jazz to his prose that at times makes them poetry, even in this little piece.  And I’ve yet to see the side of him that justifies his trail name.  

One good evening of talk and a great steak dinner and I probably won’t see Jackass again until he blasts past me on trail at a 40 miles per day pace.  But how nice to meet a friend on a long trail. 

Also in town was Hoka-hey, who we had met while hitchhiking down from Stevens Pass, and grown to like.  He had several days to kill before hiking the last stretch to Canada and opted to spend them in Stehekin.  He rented a bike and had been having a great time getting to know the area.  Originally from Tennessee, his accent had that honey sweet, slow drawl that made you hang on every word.  Over dinner we shared stories and inevitably invited him to hike on with us toward Canada.  Initially he was on, but then realized it would mean waiting several days in Canada at the Manning Park Lodge for his lady friend.  He decided the better option was waiting at Stehekin and hiking out just in time to meet her.   

I don’t blame him.  With its lodge on Lake Chelan and a dude ranch up valley that feeds people so well it is known all up and down trail, a large organic garden to buy fruits and veggies, and possibly the best bakery from Mexico to Canada, Stehekin is a great place for a layover.  Droves of people come across for the day on several ferries from the city of Chelan, 55 miles down the lake, which is the third deepest in the US.  You can rent kayaks or bikes or swim right from the center of town, which faces out over the lake to sheer rock walls that form a breathtaking backdrop to your sunrises and sunsets.   In the evening, it’s quiet and a stroll up the main road in the dark anchors your awareness of place, deep in the wilds of the North Cascades.  This is a civilized spot not far from Canada with more feel of mountain than town, where I would love to return for a more normal vacation.

The next morning Richard and I were up early to get breakfast and be at the post office for our final resupply boxes.  We needed to go through them before the first bus left for the end of the road at the National Park.  From there it was all woods and mountains and a mere 81 miles to Canada.  The weather was great and the forecast was for more to come.  But I was sad as I left town, a feeling I’d had last year as well.  Then it had been for the conclusion of one of the best adventures of my life, a sweetness at the anticipation of completing a 2,600 mile trail, mixed with a deep sadness for the end of that trail.  It meant goodbye to so many friends I had made along the way and with whom I had shared so much.  

This year the sadness was in being here in their absence.  For me those hikers, most so much younger than myself, will always be a part of the memory of that place.  Their excitement and exuberance every day as they passed me by at some point, leaving me in the dust of their youth and vigor, but knowing they’d have a camp picked out and set up by the time I panted in.  And their low points, spirits down, when the constant rain finally got to them.  It was all part of the incredible privilege of having been welcomed as a member of a moving, morphing, influx trail family of old and young together, day after mile filled day.  The thru hike had been one-third incredibly beautiful trail, one-third the experience of trail magic and trail angels, and one-third the shared love and camaraderie of hikers, wonderful, intelligent, giving, fascinating hikers.  Thank God Richard had turned out to be someone of their ilk, or 360 miles might have seemed a lot longer.

“We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love. God does not appear, and flow out, only from narrow chinks and round bored wells here and there in favored races and places, but He flows in grand undivided currents, shoreless and boundless over creeds and forms and all kinds of civilizations and peoples and beasts, saturating all and fountainizing all.”  John Muir