The day we reached the northern terminus of the PCT was the most gratifying and satisfying day on trail – but also the scariest. It was the day I came closest to pushing the SOS button on my Garmin inReach.

In a normal [non-COVID] year, PCT hikers can tag the northern terminus and then proceed into Canada (assuming they have their passport and entry permit) and hike a few miles to Manning Park where they can then travel home. This being a very non-normal year, we weren’t allowed entry into Canada – although I can neither confirm nor deny that I may have walked several paces into the The Great White North to relieve myself in a foreign land.

Since we weren’t going to be able to depart out of Canada, we were going to have to backtrack 30 miles to the northernmost U.S. road which crosses the PCT – Harts Pass.

So passing Stehekin, Washington, I picked up my final resupply package at the small post office – in it enough food for the 110 mile trip to get up to the border and then back to Harts Pass.

Fifty miles north of Stehekin, at Harts Pass, we met up with another PCT hiker – Yardsale – who had gotten off trail earlier in the year. Money had convinced Yardsale he needed to meet us at Harts Pass and hike to the border and back with us; then be our ride back to civilization at the end of the adventure.

About the time we got to Harts Pass, Yardsale also rolled up in his unmistakable, white Mitsubishi van so recognizable to the PCT Class of 2020; the hiker -autographed van seen all throughout California as he and his father, Tank took turns “trail angeling” for folks out on the trail. He said the vehicle frame had seen better days and so the long drive up the precarious dirt road to Harts Pass had been a bit harrowing.

The day before reaching the northern terminus, Yardsale hadn’t been feeling tip-top and we chided him that he probably had COVID. He shrugged it off and thought he’d feel better after a night’s rest. Afterall, we had hiked about 16 miles that day, and while Money and I were used to it by now, Yardsale hadn’t been hiking those mileages in several months. We also figured it was possible the altitude was affecting him. He was starting at a disadvantage on this section in that he had just come up from his home at sea level, while the rest of us had already been acclimated to the elevation for several months.

There was an electric feeling of excitement the morning we set out to the terminus. We had camped at a beautiful tentsite on a ridge line with extraordinary views of the North Cascades. Everyone’s spirits were high because we only had an eight-mile, mostly downhill “slack-pack” (meaning a partially filled backpack – we left most of our gear at the tentsite) hike to the terminus.

• 

• 

We arrived at the terminus a bit after 1100 am and it was an incredible feeling. Finally, after I had been hiking for 132 days and 2,056 miles, we arrived at the goal – the Canadian border. You could see the sense of pride and accomplishment on the faces of all the hikers there with us at the terminus. SOS and Taco Raptor were already at the monument when we arrived; Stublina and Too Clean showed up a short while after we got there.

In some ways it was kind of hard to believe. Had we actually walked all this way – from Southern California all the way to Canada? We had – we did it by waking up early, grinding out 20-30 miles in a day, going to bed, and then doing it all over again the next day. And you do it day, after day, after day – and finally, you arrive at the Canadian border.

Money, Yardsale and I popped mini-bottles of champagne and sprayed them all about captured in a glorious slow motion video. We also had the others there take copious amounts of photographs of us next to the terminus marker. We ate lunch, reminisced with the others there, signed the trail registry and took our time reading all the previous comments in said registry; particularly looking for those comments of our trail friends who had completed the journey before us.

After nearly three hours at the terminus, we started back up the hill to our campsite. It was a strange feeling walking away from the terminus and back up the hill. We had arrived at the final destination and now we were heading back along the same stretch of trail, no longer on the mission to the terminus. It made you wonder what you were hiking for at this point – and a bit irritated that we had an extra 30 miles to hike. But the incredible early October weather and clear sky views of the North Cascades melted away any feelings of melancholy.

• 

• 

I got to camp around 5:00 pm and Boots (who tagged the border the previous day) was there watching over our gear and waiting for us. Yardsale showed up with Money about 45 minutes later and he made a B-line straight for his tent without saying a word. The rest of us didn’t make much of it and began cooking dinner and talking about the day’s excitement.

About 30 minutes later, the floodgates burst open as Yardsale flung open his tent and began to vomit violently just outside of it. Money, Boots and I looked at each other with that look of slight panic you get when things have been going so well up to that point and you now know that’s instantly changed. He was shivering uncontrollably, had a hard time talking and seemed to be hungry and dehydrated. We initially made him an electrolyte drink to help rehydrate him, but then realized the cold drink was just going to make him colder yet. So instead, we made him a hot chocolate to try and start warming him up.

Shortly afterwards, Money came over to my tent and asked what I thought about pressing the SOS button on the Garmin inReach. Yardsale was looking quite bad and we couldn’t be sure what it was. We had a sense that this could be altitude sickness but also wondered if there was some other type of medical emergency going on. We started discussing pushing the SOS button, and Yardsale in what can only be described as the most passive plea for us to push the button said, “I wouldn’t be upset if you pushed the button right now.” That made the rest of us smile.

But before pushing the button, I decided we should text my brother with the device and see if he could Google the symptoms of altitude sickness. We were camped at 7,000 feet elevation and sure enough, the symptoms my brother found on the internet were matching exactly to what Yardsale was experiencing. It was getting dark and a helicopter pickup at our location anytime soon wasn’t very likely so we decided we were going to have to take care of things that night on our own. The thing to do was to get Yardsale warmed up so that hopefully he could fall asleep and get some rest. Then we would see how he was doing in the morning and whether he felt up to walking out under his own power.

This was the point we told Money he was going to have to take one for the team. Seeing as though he had the most hiker-warming blubber on him, Boots and I had voted (without his knowing) that he should be the lucky individual to jump in Yardsale’s tent and help warm him up. Money was a sport and snuggled up with his new tent mate while Boots and I got a fire started. Boots’s plan was to heat large stones in the fire and then place them in the vestibule area of Yardsale’s tent. We also heated one stone and put it in a cook pot wrapped in a reflectix pot cozy and put that in Yardsale’s sleeping bag to warm him up more directly.

By 1100 pm that night, we could hear snoring in the tent and knew that Yardsale had warmed up plenty and had been able to fall asleep. A very good sign indeed. The question now would be if he felt good enough the next day to hike 16 miles. We put out the fire and went to bed as well.

The following morning we were blessed with an amazing view of a white blanket of clouds covering the valleys to the west of us. Yardsale had gotten a full night’s rest and while he still wasn’t feeling great, he felt up to hiking out of there. Money helped out by taking some of Yardsale’s gear and we started back towards the van. We stopped several times along the way to chat with several groups of northbound thru hikers who we knew from the bubble just behind us.

• 

• 

Yardsale was a real trooper that day and hiked 16 miles to get to the next tentsite which happened to be at a significantly lower elevation. The drop in elevation had a noticeable effect and he was feeling much better. Now, as we sat around our last campfire on the trail – and he hadn’t died from the experience – we proceeded to kid him about the whole thing. There was a lot of joking about Money and Yardsale bunking together in a tent as well as Yardsale’s half-delirious comments about “pushing the button.”

The next day we hiked the final six miles back to Harts Pass where the van was waiting. Yardsale, now back to his chipper self, drove us down the hill as he DJ’d EDM music (some, his own creation) in the van. There was a sense of quiet pride, relief and accomplishment in the van as we bounced down the hill towards Seattle. For the other guys, they had finished the trail by reaching the northern terminus and I could tell they were quietly processing being done with this adventure. For me it was not quite the same since I knew this was one part of the journey, but not the last – In ten days I’ll head to the southern terminus near Campo and begin the final portion of my hike – 454 miles – Campo to Agua Dulce. I expect that section to take me about three weeks.

Trail Facts:

• Trail miles walked – 2,056
• Current PCT mileage marker – 2,650 (The Northern Terminus!)
• Additional PCT Thru Hikers I’ve met – Joyride, Landlord, Radar, Joe Dirt, Shamrock, MacGyver, Salt, Savior, Lamb Chop, Capt Awesome, Stout, Hulk, The Chairman, Pittsburgh, 007, Lowlander, Crazy Legs, Road Kill, Goldilocks, Banquet, Aussie, BamBam, Buttercup, Jenga, Spice Rack, Falcon, Sherlock, Wrong Way, Lucky, Case
• Current Audiobook – Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer
• Additional wildlife seen – Hoary Marmot