Day One Hundred Thirty Four

And so it was that we left Washington and traveled the long route back home.

Tanner drove, which meant that since leaving Portland to pick me up from Wenatchee a week ago, he had driven about 50 hours to and from Washington helping hikers try and finish our hike. After today, he and I both deserved a long rest.

Once back in Portland, Sunshine continued to make travel plans and I got in touch with Katie. Rotisserie and Sansei had left for Eugene and were planning some small vacations on the coast before Rotisserie headed home to Minnesota. Katie's family was planning a get-together tonight in celebration of our PCT journey, so she invited Sunshine, Wocka, Giddyup and I to attend.
We arrived just after dusk, spending the evening in good company. Katie's family made some wonderful food and posted pictures of our trip on the windows, so we all stood beside the panes and laughed as we remembered each memory on trail.

We talked about friends we missed and the memories we had made with each other these past few months. We talked about our sadness at not finishing our journey, and how proud we were at all we had accomplished this summer. We didn't know the ending to everyone's stories, but over the next few weeks we would learn more about our hiker friends and the fate of their journeys.

- Sneaks, after setting back off into the snow, made it to the border a week later. Good weather, GPS, and a dedicated group of people made the walk successful, though it wasn't without peril. They faced steep, icy terrain, freezing temperatures, a slow pace, dangerous washouts, and navigational errors. But they persevered and they were able to achieve what we had not.
- Most thru-hikers who were stuck behind Steven's Pass ultimately gave up the dream of the border. This included our dear friend Papa Bear, who hadn't quite made it to Steven's Pass before the storm. The path from Rainy Pass to the border was well broken by Sneak's group, but Steven's Pass to Stehekin remained impassable for some time.
- Even those most hikers behind Steven's Pass gave up, there were some who attempted to walk through the snow without good equipment or locational devices. Search and Rescue was called out several times in the coming weeks for two or three hikers who had gotten lost in the snow. Fortunately in all these cases the hikers were safely retrieved (thanks in part to the wonderful trail angels the Dinsmore's, who were a huge asset to the police with their carefully kept hiker-records), but there were a lot of fears, worries and rumors floating around our Facebook page in the meantime. It made a lot of hikers rethink their desperation to reach the border.
- Our friends Dance Party and Focus, after trying to walk through the snow from Steven's Pass to Stehekin, ran into the same issues we had: four feet of snow and constant trail breaking for hours on end. Deciding it wasn't worth it, they opted to take an "alternate alternate" route (since the "alternate" route - Ross Lake trail - was closed) and highway road walked the entire 100 miles to the border in costumes with friends. They ended up in local newspapers and people who lived on the road became instant trail angels, putting out signs reading: "PCT Alternate Alternate Route Trail Magic."
- In the last weeks of October, the final group of hikers stuck in Steven's Pass, including Sweet Tooth, Hot Tub, 30 Pack and Outburst, rallied together and did the impossible: they plowed through 100 miles of snow to get to Stehekin, and then continued to the border. They may have been the last hikers this season to reach Canada, and we were proud of their tenacity.

When the night grew dark, we sat around the outdoor bonfire and shared stories, telling our nightly highlights one more time. We talked about our favorite moments, the insightful things we had learned, all the ways we had changed and yet, had stayed the same. We talked about how things would be different at home, and would we be able to adapt? We didn't know how to sleep indoors, how to eat real food, sit on couches all day, or go back to working 9-5. We didn't know how to be part of society anymore, and we didn't know if we wanted to. We talked about our longing to finish the trail, our sorrow that it had ended so soon. But to sit among friends and talk was a kind of healing. And I realized that having fifty more miles of trail left was a bit of magic in itself: now I didn't have to say my journey was over. There would always be a small part of me that would want to go back to the PCT, to feel those miles beneath my shoes until the monument rose into sight. Having that small piece was enough to keep my dream alive. As long as I still had fifty miles at the end of my trail, I would never truly be finished walking. The journey would never truly be over.

As the night wound down, we wiped away tears, gave each other hugs, said goodbye. We made promises, to return to the trail, in one way or another. It would always call us back, and in each other, we had this shared experience.

I said a final goodbye to Wocka, Giddyup, Sunshine and Katie, and drove home with my family. I thought about what life would be like, in the next few days, the next few weeks. I knew it would be culture shock to return to "real life" from the trail, but I didn't know yet how hard it would be. All I knew was that I had changed in small ways and in big, and I didn't want to go back to being the person I used to be.

As I stared out the window to the blackness, I was reminded of something from a fellow thru-hiker. His friend had written a poem for him upon his arrival home, and its poignancy struck me in this moment.

After Caesar conquered Gaul,
he returned again to Rome
and kicked his sandals off in the hall
of his well-appointed home. 

His wife poured out a cup of wine,
the senators saluted,
and though he saw that all was fine,
his heart felt convoluted. 

“Is it me,” he said, somewhat chagrined,
“or have you changed the chairs?
That statue in the atrium—
was it once beneath the stairs?” 

“I haven’t moved a single thing,”
his wife said with a shrug.
“See that sepia-colored ring
of vomit on the rug? 

The day you left, the tomcat hurled
and I preserved it in your name,
so that even when you owned the world
your house would feel the same.” 

Caesar scratched his head and thought,
something still feels mighty queer.
He wistfully recalled the cot
where he’d slept these last eight years. 

“Julius,” Senator Lucian said,
“I don’t mean to be a jerk,
but shouldn’t you be off to bed?
Tomorrow, it’s back to work.” 

They raised a toast to victory,
said it’s good to have you back;
then they all walked out in twos and threes,
while Caesar stowed his pack. 

How, he thought, can it all be the same,
just the same as it was before?
When it feels like every single thing
is a little less—or, no—a little more?

Day One Hundred Thirty Three

This morning was full of frantic plan-making. Sneaks left just after dawn to return to the Rainy Pass trailhead. He would be attempting to reach the border through the snow for a second time with a different group of thru-hikers.

Wocka, Giddyup, Kazu, and Sunshine packed up their gear, ready to catch a hitch with Aloha, Toots and Tears to the trailhead so they could start their road walk to the border. They were planning to walk the highway for twenty miles, at which point they would arrive at the Ross Lake trail, which was lower in elevation than the PCT and shouldn't have snow on it. They could then follow this trail to the Canadian border and return home knowing they had physically walked from one end of the country to the other.
There was just one problem. They couldn't get the maps.
It was a strange phenomenon, actually: Wocka went online to download the topo for the Ross Lake trail, but when she visited the website, it came up with an error message and said the site was disabled.
It was then that we realized just what the government shutdown was doing to us.
"If the government shut down the park website, do you think they'll close the Ross Lake trail?" I wondered.
"I don't know," Wocka admitted. "I've heard they're closing the national parks."
"The PCT goes through the North Cascades National Park up here," I pointed out. "And six other national parks, besides... they wouldn't close the PCT, would they?"
This thought made us all fall silent with horror. Not being able to walk the trail due to weather was one thing, but to be run off the trail by the government?
To be told that as free, legal US citizens we couldn't walk a trail that was built and maintained by volunteers and that all of us had been faithfully walking for five months? They couldn't legally take that away from us, could they? Surely not.
But the truth was, we were all afraid they might.

"We'll just have to try," Wocka sighed. "We won't know anything until we try. We're going to walk north until we can't anymore."
After big hugs and goodbyes, Wocka, Giddyup, Kazu and Sunshine left for the trail, and I was left sitting by myself in a big, empty hotel room. I had never felt so alone. Part of me wished I was walking the road with them, but I stared out the window at the pouring rain and knew what a miserable hike it would be. And to what end? I wouldn't get to see the monument, anyway, and that's what I wanted.

I stayed in the hotel until check out time, and then sat on the porch beneath the awning, waiting for Tanner to pick me up and take me to my aunt's house. He arrived just after noon and solemnly we drove out of Winthrop and toward the coast.

It was pouring as we drove; it didn't take too long to catch up to the others, who were walking in a line down the side of the highway. They had left their packs in Aloha's car and were slackpacking it beneath their umbrellas. Wocka was walking in her Crocs because her new waterproof boots had given her blisters. Her feet were soaking and she looked exhausted but determined. We stopped to give them final hugs and I told them if they needed anything, we would only be a few hours away.

Ross Lake

After a quiet few hours in the car, we arrived at my Aunt Katie's house and gave hugs to her and my mom. It was warm and cozy here, though I felt drained of all energy and just ready to go to bed and sleep for a long, long time. Everyone was so proud of me and insisted that fifty miles shy of the border was hardly anything to fret over - but despite these words of sentiment, I was still full of regret for not reaching Canada.

We lay around the house talking and catching up with my cousins, and then, as evening fell, my phone rang. It was Wocka, and I knew immediately that something must be wrong.
"Wocka?" I answered the phone. "Where are you?"
"It's over," her heavy voice replied, empty of emotion, as though she had spent it all already. "We're done with the trail."
"What?" I said, shocked. "What happened?"
Slowly, she unraveled the trials and tribulations of the day: it had been a long twenty miles of road walking, but they had been making relatively good time at 3mph. A group fifteen people or so reached the Ross Lake trail early in the evening and stopped to take a break and eat some dinner. It was then that a ranger car pulled up to the trail and two park rangers got out. Apparently our worst fears about the shutdown this morning were right: the government had closed the parks. The rangers were there to keep everyone from hiking the trail. The hikers begged and pleaded and said they had walked twenty six hundred miles to be there, they were only thirty miles from the border, and couldn't they just finish? Please? But though the rangers were sympathetic, they were following orders and couldn't relent. They took pictures of all the hikers and said if they were caught on the trail, they would be arrested. And more than that: because the PCT went through North Cascades National Park in this area, it was also closed. Unless our friends snuck through Rainy Pass early this morning, they would be barred from hiking the real trail, too.
"And so we've done all we could," Wocka sighed heavily. "We tried our best. The weather and the government are determined to keep us from finishing our dreams."
I was stunned. I couldn't believe that after all this time that we could be so close to the end - a mere thirty miles - and have everything we've worked for pulled out from under us.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Oh, I've been crying all afternoon," she laughed. "But I can't do anything to change it, so I'm trying to come to terms with it. It's not easy."
"Yeah," I agreed, feeling her pain. "So what are you going to do now?"
"Well, that's what I'm calling you about," she said. "You said your aunt lives close by? Is there any way we can stay the night? Until we can figure out what our plans are for getting home?"
"Of course!" I said.

And so a few hours later Wocka, Giddyup, Kazu, and Sunshine arrived via hitching and Tanner, and our little house on the water was full of life and noise. We sat around the table talking about the trail and everything we've gone through to get to this point. And still no one could believe that after all the chaos with the weather, that the government shutdown would be the final kink in our plans.

"So what about the rest of the PCT?" I asked. "It goes through Yosemite, and Lassen Park, and Crater Lake... and a bunch of other parks that must be affected by the shutdown. I know most hikers are up in Washington, but what about the southbounders who are in California?"
"It's making life hell for them, too," Wocka said. "Apparently all visitor amenities are being shut down - as in, the outhouses are locked up and the water spigots are being turned off."
We gasped, remembering our days in the desert of Southern California: walking through thirty miles of heat and dehydration in order to get to that one, life-saving water spigot. And now they were turned off. As if lives didn't hang in the balance by doing this one simple act.
"Fortunately there are some amazing trail angels in those areas, as we know," Wocka continued. "It sounds like a lot of them are banding together and trying to leave extra water caches in these places to supplement the hikers. I hope it'll be enough."

Our hiker Facebook page was blowing up: desperate southbounders in need of trail magic, northbound hikers trying desperately to get through the snow, all of us learning about the extent of the shutdown and grasping for the latest news. Who had hiked from Rainy Pass? Who was hiking from Steven's Pass? What were the weather conditions like? What was the upcoming forecast? What gear was needed? Who had tried road walking? We updated everyone as best we could, giving the latest info about the Ross Lake alternate being shut down. Desperation was everywhere. Everyone was trying to find a loophole, and no one could. No one wanted to be the first to admit that maybe the hiking season is over. Maybe we can't make it, after all.

Wocka, Giddyup, Kazu and Sunshine spent the evening online trying to rearrange their flights to get home. Since our car only had one empty seat to drive home to Portland, we could only take Sunshine back with us. Wocka, Giddyup and Kazu decided on taking a bus to Seattle tomorrow morning to catch a bus to Portland where they would fly out in a few days. Kazu would fly out from Seattle but Wocka and Giddyup planned to stay with Katie in Portland before leaving. I was glad, at least, that I would get to see them one more time before we all said our final goodbyes.

Bramble + cousins

Day One Hundred Thirty Two

Today's miles: 7
Total miles: 2607

The hotel we stayed in last night had two beds, which meant Sunshine offered to sleep on the floor. He made himself a fort with all the extra throw pillows and his inflatable mattress, and apparently slept really well.
I woke up this morning to hear him crying out, "Brambles! Brambles, wait for it...."
And he unscrewed the valve on his air mattress so that it hissed loudly as the air rushed out.

I laughed, because this was a running inside joke on trail. In the mornings, when we knew it was time to get up, all of us hid in our tents, pretending to still be asleep. It wasn't until the first brave person sighed and dramatically let the air out of their sleeping pad that the rest of us followed suit. Each morning the stillness was broken by one deflating air pad, followed quickly by a cacophony of hissing air - our own backcountry alarm clock.

We quickly got ready, enjoyed some pastries from the next door bakery, and hit the road for Rainy Pass. I read the weather report on my phone and checked in on the PCT Facebook page for updates. My friends were still wildly trying to find ways north. We were the first group attempting to leave from Rainy Pass. I noticed that some of my other friends back home were ranting on Facebook about a "government shutdown." Having been disconnected from the world from five months, I had no idea what this entailed, but I assumed that if I was this far removed from society, it wouldn't affect me much. At any rate, the weather report looked promising.

Wocka, Giddyup, Sneaks and Kazu were already at the trailhead, having caught a hitch earlier this morning. Apparently Toots, Tears, Lighthouse, Cuddles, Fun Size and the rest of their group had just left and were a few minutes in front of us down the trail. Aloha and another hiker named LionHeart were still there, so we stood in the parking lot for a bit, hugging each other and saying goodbye to my family. My mom, sister and Tanner would drive to my aunt's house to stay a few days while I finished the trail; she lived only a few hours from here and it would be easier than going back to Portland.

My mom took photos as we strapped on our gear, our packs, and our winter clothes, and headed into the unknown.

Courtney, Mom, Bramble, Tanner

Left to right: LionHeart, Bramble, Sunshine, Sneaks, Giddyup, Wocka, Kazu

The first few miles were lovely. We had been anxious about the weather, but it was proving to be perfect so far. No new snow, blue skies, cool temperatures. We forded several strong rivers and we squealed in delight at the novelty of waterproof boots. It was like having a super power - we can walk through water and not get wet!!
Having spent five months in mesh trail runners, this was magic.

As we gained elevation from Rainy Pass, more and more snow covered the trail. I loved it. The views were spectacular, and Wocka, Giddyup, Sunshine and I were like giddy school children, dancing through the snow and laughing up at the blue sky.
We're back on the PCT! It's heaven out here!
We marveled at the gorgeous mountain tops, the huge, hanging icicles, the white powdery clouds on the bluebird sky. I couldn't imagine this trail being any more beautiful on a day when there wasn't snow. For a moment I felt lucky that the storm hit and we were able to see the trail like this.
"Do you think walking through snow will get old at some point?" Sunshine asked me.
"Probably," I said. "But it hasn't yet!"
The PCT was marvelous today. I was so thrilled to be out here, and headed for the border, and I just knew this day was going to be great.

The crew ahead of us was doing a good job marking the trail for us. We followed their footsteps, and it became more and more critical to navigate as the snow grew deeper and deeper. We made a pact together to stay safe in this terrain: you must always be able to see the hiker ahead of you, and behind you. So far we had been doing a good job of sticking together.

When the snow became two feet deep, I was finding that postholing into the footsteps was becoming more difficult. Our pace slowed as the snow deepened. Sunshine and I decided to try wearing snowshoes, to see if it would speed our progress. But the snowshoes were too wide for the narrow trail that the others had cut, so after a frustrating mile in them, still sinking to our kneecaps, we took them off again.

As we grew closer to 6,000 feet, the footsteps grew ever deeper and it began to lightly snow. We crested the top of our climb at Cutthroat Pass, where a gorgeous view lay before us. The snow here was so deep it had almost buried our PCT sign, and the only way we knew where to go was due to Toots and Tears' group breaking trail ahead of us.

The trail meandered along the mountain ridge on a steep angle. Our trail was now three feet deep in snow in some places, and difficult to trace. I had to carefully place each footstep directly in the ones already ahead of me. If I strayed even a little bit, my foot sunk into the snow and I found myself buried up to my waist. Sunshine and I had fallen behind Wocka and Giddyup, and Sunshine was falling even further behind me. I paused to wait for him, admiring the view. It was very slow going, but I was still determined and felt good about the day, as a whole. I looked out at the snow and had an amusing thought: how will I go to the bathroom? It would be tricky to dig through this much snow just to find frozen earth to dig into. I was glad for the moment that it wasn't an issue.
Sunshine caught up to me after quite some time, his face twisted in pain as he limped along.
"What's wrong?" I asked, worried.
"My legs are cramping," he gasped. "They haven't cramped this bad since Kennedy Meadows... I don't know what's bringing it on again."
He looked like he could barely walk.
"It's the muscle?" I asked, "like your calves?"
"Yeah," Sunshine gasped, and then suddenly dropped his pack and lay himself down on his back in a white pile of snow. "Help me, Brambles."
He stuck his legs in the air and I helped him massage the muscles on his legs while he cried out in pain.
"Have you tried putting snow on them?" I suggested, nervously. "When I get muscle cramps, ice usually helps them release."
Sunshine rolled up his rainpants and we shoveled handfuls of snow onto his calves. It seemed to help a little, and soon he was struggling back to his feet and putting his pack back on.
"Okay," he sighed. "I'm going to move really slowly, so sorry in advance."
"Don't be sorry," I said, "I'm not going to leave you. We were supposed to all stick together, at any rate. If I start getting too far ahead, you yell at me, okay?"
"Okay," he agreed.

And so we continued forward, carefully picking our way along the snowy mountain traverse. I remembered notes from my maps and my friend Wes telling me that the last fifty miles of trail was all ridge-walking, very exposed and very high in elevation. This was what our trail would be like for the next few days... very snowy, very cold and very steep. I idly wondered what the avalanche danger was this time of year.

It began to snow harder. The blue sky was trying desperately to peek through the clouds, but the gray seemed to be slowly taking over. I could see Wocka and Giddyup far ahead on the trail, and I did my best to keep up, but the trail was icy and every few steps I fell in snow up to my waist and had to dig myself out again. I had to be careful not to take a wrong step and slip down the mountain.

I didn't want to check my watch but I knew our pace had fallen drastically - we were moving at a mile an hour, if that, and afternoon was already upon us. I planted my trekking poles for stability but they disappeared into the snow without anything to anchor them. Sunshine was falling farther behind, so I kept pausing to wait, but the cold was biting through my jacket. I knew the only way to get through tonight's chill would be to drop below 5,000 feet. We would have to walk fifteen miles from the trailhead, and currently we had only made it six.

As I walked, I placed my feet carefully and continually brushed falling snow off my shoulders. Suddenly a dark shape appeared in front of me, walking in my direction. I hesitated, wondering if this was a southbounder or someone turning around. The trail was narrow and steep and I wasn't sure how to safely get out of the way.
It turned out to be Fun Size. He stopped in front of me and said, "Hey."
"Hey," I replied. "Weren't you ahead of us? With Toots and Tears?"
"Yeah," he agreed. "Here's the scoop: we've been postholing a new trail all morning through the snow, and now that it's gotten so deep, our pace has really dropped. We've been doing less than a mile an hour, if that. We keep switching who's in front so that no one gets too exhausted, but it has just gotten too hard to keep up."
"I appreciate you guys breaking trail," I said, "it has made it so much easier for us."
Fun Size waved away my thanks. "It's not that," he said, "we just can't keep going like this. The snow is getting too deep and it's getting harder to tell where the trail should be without a good GPS. You can see the rest of them up ahead... there's a big wall of snow we ran into. Over four feet deep. We all stopped to talk and realized that it's going to take us all day to get off this mountain ridge. It's getting later in the afternoon and we've only gone seven miles. If we keep up this pace all the way to the border, it'll take us a week. We just don't have the food for that."
"Oh," I said, letting this sink in, slowly.
"Don't let me make a decision for you," Fun Size said, "you're welcome to make your own choices. I'm just telling you what we've figured out. It's hard work breaking trail, harder than we realized, and I'm not up for fifty miles of that."
"Is everyone turning back?" I asked.
"Most of them, I think," Fun Size said. "But don't take my word for it. You can talk to them, if you want. They're up ahead a bit."
With that, he pushed past me, headed back down the mountain.

I stood stunned for a few minutes, letting this information soak in. It had been hard hiking, yes, but I didn't feel ready to give up, yet. But then again, I hadn't been the one breaking trail all morning. I had been walking in other's footsteps, and even when the trail was hard, at least I could follow it. Now I stood in the middle of a snowstorm, the sky so white that I could barely see two feet in front of me. What if the weather got worse?
Part of me wished we had waited a few more days, until someone else broke the trail to the border, so all we had to do was follow in good weather. But was that selfish of me?
I slowly caught up to the rest of the group. They were standing in a solemn huddle, ignoring the piles of snow gathering on their shoulders and hoods. I could tell some of them had been crying by the presence of icicles on their eyelashes.
Ahead I could see the wall of snow Fun Size had been referring to - I could barely see around it, it was so tall. And beyond that, snow and mountains as far as the eye could see. And no trail. It was completely blanketed in white.
"We did our best," I heard Toots say brokenly. "I said I was going to hike until I physically couldn't anymore, until the trail stopped me, and I think this is my sign. It'll take too long at this rate to reach the border. We'll have to find another way."
And she, too, turned back. Her group followed slowly, sadly, until all that was left was Wocka, Giddyup, Sneaks, Kazu and me. Sunshine was still making his way to us. I could see him stopped to talk to Fun Size.
Giddyup, Wocka and Sneaks were standing still, looking both determined and broken. Sneaks was having a fervent, under-the-breath conversation with them, trying to talk them into not quitting.
"We can do this," he insisted. "I know we can. It's just the group mentality that when one person gets fed up, everyone gets fed up and quits at once. But I've been breaking trail with them all morning. Yes, it can be hard, yes, the snow is deep, but it's not impossible. I don't mind breaking trail since I'm the tallest. The only tricky part will be finding the trail, but usually you can see an indentation in the snow, so it's not too hard to follow."

Wocka and Giddyup were silently listening, not saying anything in response. Wocka's cheeks were streaked with tears. She had already been fighting this battle. She didn't think it was safe to keep going, but she also didn't want to quit. Giddyup was staring at his feet, unwilling to take sides between his best friend and his fiancee. I watched their emotional war sadly, knowing the fate of our hike rested on a decision. But the truth was, I was torn, too. I didn't want to quit, but the thought of postholing through fifty miles of four foot snow made me exhausted just thinking about it. What was it Sunshine had said earlier?
Will we ever be tired of the snow?
Eventually Wocka said, "I don't want to quit, I don't. But I've also camped in this kind of weather before. I know it can get dangerous. I know it's not the smart choice to keep going. I don't want to put us in danger, but I also don't want to be the reason no one reaches the border."
The choice was killing her. Giddyup could see that, and so he put an arm around her, and together they made the life-altering decision to turn back from their dreams. Slowly they turned, slowly they began walking back.
Sneaks' shoulders sagged with defeat, though his face remained determinedly resolute. He followed, but he promised aloud to the sky, "I won't hike it alone, but just so you know, the next group that attempts the trail, I'll be going with them."

I followed slowly in their wake, turning back the way we had come. I glanced over my shoulder, out at the miles of white spread behind us, into the mountains. I felt my heart breaking at leaving the trail behind. I felt the last of my journey melt like snowflakes, my dream buried in snow. Sometimes the smartest choices aren't the easiest ones.
We caught up to Sunshine, who had been briefed on the turn of events and was waiting quietly for our return. He said heavily,
"I know no one wants to quit, but to be honest, I don't know that I could have made it. My legs have been cramping all day and I can barely walk another mile, much less fifty. I would have turned back anyway."
For a moment he was silent, and then said, quietly, "all I wanted was a frozen beard picture next to the monument."
We didn't reply. No one knew what to say. No words could have made this situation any better. We walked in silence back across the mountain traverse. My feet felt oddly heavy and everything about this felt wrong - as if my body could tell I was walking in the wrong direction. For the first time in 2,600 miles, I was walking southbound.

The journey home was less joyous. I tried to come to terms with our decision, telling myself, at least your last day on trail was a good one. Though the snowy landscape was keeping us from our ultimate goal, I couldn't deny the stunning beauty of it.

When finally we dropped to a low enough elevation, the snow began to slowly disappear. I knew we had only gotten as far as we did today because the first four or five miles had been through relatively little snow. It had taken us almost three hours to cover the last two miles, and I knew that was a pace we could have never sustained. But still, it was hard not to want to run back up to Cutthroat Pass and try again, just one more time...

But my feet were aching in boots that I hadn't broken in; I was limping along the trail. My body was cold with the chill of snow, my pack was heavy with the weight of extra gear. The last miles of the PCT were supposedly some of the hardest, fraught with washouts, steep terrain, exposed ridgelines, and high altitude - things that were exponentially harder in snow. As much as I hated it, I knew we had made the right decision.

It was evening by the time we covered the final mile and found ourselves back where we started: Rainy Pass. The thought of a pit toilet at the trailhead kept me going the last little bit, but when I arrived and tried to open the door, I noticed a sign posted on it: "This facility has been closed due to the government shutdown." I was startled, because I was positive it had been open this morning.
The shutdown closes park toilets?
Something in me said this wasn't a good sign.
There was a group of hikers camped at the trailhead, ready to hike out in the morning. We told them our story, explained why we had turned around, and gave them our best advice. Despite that we had turned back, many of them didn't want to quit until they had tried the trail themselves. This was thru-hiker determination. You walk north until you can't anymore.
Wocka, Giddyup, Sneaks, Sunshine, Kazu and I made our way to the highway to catch a hitch back to Winthrop where we could make plans for the next few days.
"Hey," Wocka noted as we stood on the bleak road with our thumbs out, "it's October first. This was supposed to be the day we reached the border. I guess it turned out to be our last day on trail, after all."
We were silent, letting that sink in.

Fortunately, we didn't have to wait very long for a hitch. Two locals from Winthrop drove by and took us to town. We got a hotel suite together and spent the evening having dinner and discussing our options. Sneaks was going to head back up to the trail tomorrow with the group that was camped at Rainy Pass. Wocka and Giddyup decided they weren't finished with the trail - they were going to road walk twenty miles to the Ross Lake trail, which was at a lower elevation and ran to the Canadian border. They wouldn't get to see the PCT monument, but at least they could tell themselves that they walked to Canada. Toots and Tears' group was going to take this route, too, and Sunshine decided to join them.

I decided not to. It was a hard choice, but I was emotionally and physically drained after such a long day and in my heart I knew that road walking to Canada just wouldn't be the same as walking the PCT to the border. I knew I could just drive to the border and walk eight miles to the monument, but it wouldn't have the same meaning. If I wasn't going to come around that bend and see the monument in the clearing after walking there on the trail, then it wasn't worth it. I wanted to see the monument so badly, but I also knew it was time for me to say goodbye.

We went to sleep that night drugged by the emotions of the day. We did our best. We walked so far. We would try again some other day. And even knowing we had done what we could, we still fell asleep with pillows stained by tears.

Day One Hundred Thirty One

Today's miles: 0
Total miles: 2600

Today we had another long day of driving ahead of us. Poor Tanner manned the whole seven hours himself once again, putting his running tally to 23 hours of driving in two days and winning him the Best Fiancee Ever Award.
Sunshine and I reminisced about the trail as we drove, telling stories to my mom, Courtney and Tanner as we went. They asked us questions about the trail, fascinated by our mileage, our adventures, and our eating habits.
"How long do you think it'll take to get over our 'hiker hunger' once we're off the trail?" I asked Sunshine.
"Hopefully not too long," he said. "When I was in Portland letting my feet rest, I visited a bunch of friends, and they tried to feed me the whole time. But I started to lose my appetite."
"What!" I laughed. "This from the boy who eats seven plates of food at buffets??"
"Yeah...." he agreed musingly. "Portland was a weird time in my life where I was full."

As we drove into Northern Washington and entered the Cascade range, we began losing cell service. But we managed to check in with our friends one last time. Wocka, Giddyup, Sneaks, and Kazu expected to be near Rainy Pass around 7:00pm. Rotisserie and Sansei hadn't been able to secure a ride back to Washington, so they were back in Portland staying with Katie for a few days while we tried to finish the trail without them. Alphabet Soup and Kudu ultimately decided that they were done with the trail and were making arrangements to go home. Toots and Tears were still in the town of Winthop; Aloha was planning to drop them off at Rainy Pass early tomorrow morning to meet up with the rest of us.
As far as we knew, we were the first group attempting to hike this stretch after the storm.

The weather reports looked promising. Snow was still expected for today and tomorrow, but it would taper off by tomorrow evening and hopefully be clear the next few days after that. It was snowing as our car climbed higher in elevation, but the views of the mountains in white were stunning. I felt like I was going up for a weekend ski trip rather than a week-long backpack that would cap a 2,650 mile journey.

We got to Rainy Pass late in the afternoon. It was at a high enough elevation that there was a layer of snow everywhere. Our original plan was to camp here tonight so that we could get an early start tomorrow, but I wasn't looking forward to getting my gear cold and wet so early in the trip. My mom was the one who came up with the best plan:

"Let's go to Winthrop tonight," she suggested. "We can get a hotel room and drop you off at the trail tomorrow. That way we can spend another night with you, we don't have to drive home in the dark, and you don't have to camp in the snow."

It was a burden lifted to not have to worry about tonight's weather, and so we continued driving the extra 20 miles to Winthop for the night.

It turned out to be a great decision. Winthop was adorable; it was an entire town made to look like the Old West, with little wooden shops and buildings and the Cascades looming right behind. We found a nice hotel on the main road and then went out for dinner.

Wocka called Sunshine later in the evening; they were getting dropped off at Rainy Pass by Watson, who had to immediately drive back to Seattle so he could get to bed in time for work tomorrow. We tried to talk them into coming to Winthop, and eventually Sunshine drove back out to Rainy Pass to pick them up. But when he returned a few hours later, he was alone.
"Where is everyone?" I asked.
"They decided they didn't want to spend the night in a hotel," Sunshine said. "So I drove them down the mountain a little ways to an elevation that didn't have any snow. They're staying at a campsite a few miles from here."
So it was decided we would just see them at Rainy Pass early tomorrow.

It was all coming together, piece by piece, and now all we could hope for was good weather and a little bit of luck to shine on us tomorrow.