Hiking Dude Blog

I walked 51390 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 25 miles today.
8/14/17 Roadwalk miles are much different than miles on trails.  Today's walk was completely on roads - paved, gravel, dirt, and primitive.  Since nothing exciting happened, I'm listing pros and cons for roadwalks. Roadwalks have no spider webs, able to walk side by side, an even tread and steady grade, easy to navigate, easier miles, straighter towards destination. Roads have traffic, dust, pavement is hard on legs, less shade We are camped along a creek by the road tonight. Oh, one interesting thing - we were getting water from a creek far up in the mountains and a guy came walking out of the woods. He was a forest service employee doing goshawk research. Very weird.

I walked 52477 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 24 miles today.
8/13/17 We had thunder during the night and then real rain just after we packed up our things to start hiking.  So, we waited a bit for it to pass.  First rain in such a long time and a welcome drop in temperature. From our great temporary home in Northport, we crossed the mighty Columbia River and then hiked uphill on gravel roads most of the day.  We passed the Northport International Raceway where the races had kept us up late into the previous evening.  After that, we saw no people all day until reaching the Pierre Lake campground. But, we did see plenty of cows.  Throughout the day, we encountered small clusters of cattle on or along the path with well over 100 head in all. We got to herd a few for over two miles - they just kept walking down the road ahead of us.  This was all in the Colville forest, hence the subject line. The rain continued to mist most of the day but never really came down until after we set up our tent and were inside.  We did get to use our rain ponchos for quite a few hours. I was excited to see clouds at least 5 miles away this evening - because they were not hidden by smoke!

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I walked 46589 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 23 miles today.
It was still warm when we woke this morning, not chilly as days past. We did our usual pop tarts and water and stayed walking down the gravel road. Less than a mile in, we saw two dogs beside the road. One was all black and the other was grey. They watched us walk toward them until one sauntered into the woods and the other scampered across to the other side of the road and into the trees. They made no noise and we saw nothing more of them except their tracks in the dust for another mile. So, they could have been feral dogs but they were not coyotes and I think they were big enough to have been wolves. Sorry, no pictures. The rest of the day was a long roadwalk on pavement to Northport. We did met a couple nice ladies riding bicycles and they chatted with us. Another woman stopped and offered us a ride to Northport saying everyone else was skipping this awful roadwalk. She sounded like a drug dealer trying to convince us - 'come on, just try it'. :-) And, we found and explored a tunnel chiseled into the hillside with a water pipe running out of it. Creepy! Especially the rodent we ran into. The road was very hot and smoky - surprise! And this one had No Trespassing signs everywhere. We had to slip past an abandoned house to get water from a small creek. 109 cars passed us so that added a little excitement throughout the day. Upon reaching Northport, a lady in a pickup said HI and asked if we were hiking the PNT. I asked if she knew if there was a place liked the city park where we might put up or tent. She directed is to see Sandy in Tony's Grocery. Tony's has a good selection for resupply and Sandy was very nice. She set us up with a tent spot, bathroom, and even WiFi for the evening. Our hiking day finished around 3:30 but once again we find ourselves moving faster than expected and getting to Republic a day early doesn't help us. Tomorrow looks like more road, but the forecast is for a drop of about 15 degrees!

I walked 56316 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 26 miles today.
We got up early to start our 5200 foot elevation gain up Abercrombie Mountain over 16 miles, hoping to reach the top before the hot afternoon. Abercrombie is the 2nd highest peakin eastern Washington. A mile out of town, I realized I had forgotten the plastic sheet for under our tent.  While Josh waited with our packs, I went back for it. Water was plentiful up the hill until a water cache at the trailhead.  We topped off there and then had about 10 miles over the top and down the other side with nothing but dust and rocks.  Good thing we filled up! The top of the mountain was super. We left our packs and climbed the spur trail to the very summit. Walking on the loose rock sounded like you were walking on pieces of broken ceramic tiles. There was also the foundation of an old lookout. Coming down, there were 18 full switchbacks back and forth across the hillside baked in the afternoon sun and smoke. When we finally hit Silver Creek at the bottom, we called it a day, got water, and set up camp in a nice, free campground with pit toilet and picnic tables.

8/10/17 We slept in and then spent the day getting ready for our next 6 day section.  The Falls Market has plenty of food to resupply.  If they offered flavored tuna pouches, it would have been perfect. I figure I ate around 6000 calories today, food bought at the market and a pizza shared with Josh at the 5th Street Lounge for dinner.  Nothing is inexpensive but it is a small town. We also washed our clothes in just water in a bucket and walked down to the river to cool off in the afternoon. In the evening, we chatted with Mary again until it was time for us to turn in.  A very nice day in Metaline Falls.

I finished hiking for today. You can check out my current location on the map and I'll post about my day when I am in coverage.

I walked 55250 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 28 miles today.
Josh didn't think we'd do it but with nothing but long easy roadwalk and no place to stop due to private property and encroaching forest fires, we walked all the way to trail angel Mary's place in Metaline Falls. The excitement of the day was watching the Noisy Creek forest fire burning just across Sullivan Lake in the afternoon. The smoke got so bad we put on our bandanas and they actually helped with the irritation. We are tenting at Mary's and got to chat with her a long time this evening. She is great and had many wonderful stories, from her CDT hike as a 16 year old to the history of the 115 year old building she lives in. Now, it's late but I get to sleep in tomorrow as we're taking a rest day here.

I walked 54760 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 27 miles today.
8/8/17 Today was just a long walk on dirt and gravel forest roads over the mountains to avoid the trail closures due to fires.  Not too difficult, but quite dusty, especially when logging tricks came by.  We saw no footprints along the roads so we might be the only ones to do this detour - we'll check when we reach town. We did get to snack on huckleberries and thimbleberries, and I tried some other purple berry.  Really the only excitement for today was a wrong turn that added a couple bogus miles but allowed us to herd cattle down the road for awhile.  Oh, and we saw a dead squirrel in the road. We quit early in the day at a nice campsite by a creek and have about 30 miles to Metaline Falls but distances are pretty vague out here. Smoke continues to fill the air and today smelled like campfires and ash, and anything over a half mile away was hidden.