Surviving a night on the Skyline Divide
with a little help from "our friend"
Day hikes don't get much tougher, or more beautiful,
than Maple Pass Loop, which actually crosses
three passes
Star calls it the Pacific Coast Trail, but then again, she calls Revco Pharmacy "CVS."
After driving 19 miles on a rock and gravel road from the nearest store,
you are in deep wilderness at the trailhead. We have now backpacked
on the PCT in both California and Washington.
Some Miscellaneous Photos
Ptarmigan Ridge Snow Patterns
We ate at Graham's Store twice, where you can
"Dine in simulated luxury underneath the
Willow Tree in the backyard"
Spent our first few days at Mt. Baker in this
wonderful custom cabin by the Nooksack River
Thanks, John!
Our Final Thoughts
Despite my ad nauseam postings filled with photos and videos of hiking trips, Star and I have been discussing how the people we encountered were the most fascinating part of this trip. Every summer, we go west to hike and backpack, but travelling in Washington State this particular summer we met people on much bigger, tougher, and grander adventures. We met people who inspire, provoke, and challenge our way of doing things, and people who are kind, thoughtful, and more than willing to lend a hand or reach out for one. May each of you be blessed in your journeys thru life.
Ben
Tripping, 2013
We were aliens, easily
ID’d by our foreign accents
even though we disguised
our big ears and furry toes
with traditional hiking garb.
There were others, of course
like the elderly blind man from
Massachusetts on a snow-covered trail.
He was so terrified of heights
he couldn’t see that he trekked
with tears running down his face.
And the tripper from Arizona whose
companion waited patiently for breakfast
leftovers in his covered doggie
carrier on the bicycle.
The natives were friendly, even the
Boy Scouts who invited us to share
their camping spot. For
privacy, we
ignored the storm and found another
half an hour down the trail, marked HERE
in the dust by a couple from the parking lot.
Once in a while, we met someone
who knew we weren’t exactly from the
planet where Deliverance was filmed.
One even had hiked along the Chattooga
although he had shared it with copperheads
and dangerous denizens in overalls.
Thanks to the gremlin in Graham’s who sent us
to the village of trees at exit 42, older than anything
created outside of nature and the real giants of
Washington.
Thanks to JaNae, with her children as illegal as ours
Marta and a sliver of minke whale we chased
through the Salish Sea, and a friendly hitchhiker.
A final thanks and sigh of relief for divine intervention
which led us to Ben’s wallet under our car seat and
the computer almost turned in with the rental pod.
And so we’re back in home territory, happy to
find it just as strange and wonderful as any trip.
Star
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