Day 32 : Trout Lake

Start – Trout Lake (off trail)
Finish – Bear Lake (1465 m)
Daily Distance – 33 km
Ascent – 1055 m
Descent – 775 m

This week marked one month since starting this journey along the Pacific Crest Trail. It was also the moment when completing Washington began to feel very near, and, in all honesty, rather welcome.

It is fair to say that the last month has been physically more demanding than anticipated. The, at times, unrelenting heat, combined with long food carries, while venturing through some of the most remote and mountainous terrain on the trail, have all played their parts. The Journey has also been hugely rewarding though. While I am disappointed not to have met many people more than once, making relationships difficult to build, Washington itself has been routinely beautiful. While there are certainly more wildlife-packed trails, it has nevertheless been rewarding to see a bear (briefly), consistently fail to get good pictures of marmots, guard my food from felonious chipmunks and avoid stepping on a dizzying array of butterflies. And each stage has provided its own challenge and reward. Scrambling over-under-and-around blown down trees or slogging up hills, balanced by lazy late afternoons swimming in lakes or basking in campsite mountain views.

I have also enjoyed seeing small town America. Often lazily portrayed as small-minded, insular, racists, the people whom I have met have embraced grubby hikers with warmth and generosity (if not occasionally some bafflement). That isn’t to say that some aspects of American culture aren’t a little odd to outsiders. The obsession with consuming bags of ice in drinks for one. It is hot, but it isn’t sub-saharan Africa hot. Veterans culture is another strange one. Middle aged ladies wearing t-shirts emblazoned, “I’m not daddy’s little girl, I’m a veterans daughter!” make me cringe, but on the flip side, the patriotic pride in their country is wholesome and, in a way endearing. Very much a country still, more than other western countries, embodying the “ask not what your country can do you for, but what you can do for your country” spirit. Whether or not that’s because “what your country can do for you” is ruinously expensive healthcare and rapacious capitalism, I don’t know. Continuing the disconnect between people and politics, I have seen a real sadness at the breakdown in relations with Canada and a relief, mixed with surprise, that Europeans are still choosing to visit. I suspect that many communities in Washington State have been badly hit by the boycott of Canadian holiday makers, people whom irrespective of nationality they feel more kinship with than the east coast elites of Washington DC.

Some of these small towns, like Stehekin, with 80 year round residents, 10 children in the school, and no road access feel very much like a relic of the frontier age. I can’t imagine such communities existing anywhere in Western Europe, which makes their ongoing existence a delightful novelty to me. I hope to encounter more such places as I travel through Oregon.

On a personal note, when hiking, I find myself able to savour the days more. Being able to pause to admire a beautiful vista, stop for a conversation with random strangers of all ages and nationalities, and meditating through the steady rhythm of my footfalls are all incredibly rewarding. Distance also helps gain perspective on not only what is and is not important in my life back home, but also considering if I am really happy with how I am living my life and with the person I am becoming. All difficult things to gain perspective on during the relentless busyness of regular life.

But first, in only a few days now, I will cross the famous Bridge of the God’s (quickly because there’s no footpath), passing over the Columbia river and entering into Oregon.