Day 36
I got a little bit of a late start for no good reason. Chown Creek was significantly lower-but the deepest ford was still almost waist deep, and fast, and icy cold. That would not have been doable last night. Went up over Bess Pass and then Jackpine Pass. The “main route” in Guthook was a high, cross country route after Jackpine Pass. I had the sneaking suspicion that this was going to be a repeat of the Colonel Creek debacle where the “main route” led into bushwhacking through a thickly forested burn zone-so opted to take the “low route”, along the Jackpine River. The smoke came back with a vengeance today and visibility was really low. Also, I still hadn’t caught up with Adi and she had left me a total of 5 notes along the trail- the last one indicating she was taking the low route. So, I dropped down Jackpine Pass to the river-and to absolutely no trail at all. The first 0.5 miles was easy rock hopping and crossing the knee deep Jackpine River a few times across its wide floodplain. Then, the banks of the river closed in to high cliffs, maybe 100 feet at their highest, and the river was shunted in between the cliffs and was RAGING white water-suicide if you tried to cross or fell in. So I was forced to bushwhack high into another thick forest with a ton of blowdowns around the cliffs, and I went about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in an hour. I looked at the map-the Trail (“trail”) follows the Jackpine River for a total of……20 miles. And I just can’t. Probably the Trail improves at some point along that but I’m just out of steam. I’m going to go back to Jackpine Pass tomorrow and take the High Route to where it interesects with a trail and then a 26 mile forest service road which ultimately dumps onto Highway 16 just 7 miles from McBride, so I wouldn’t even have to hitchhike on the Highway of Tears (where 19 women have been murdered) if I don’t want to.
Part of this sport is knowing when to stop. I often say that if it’s not fun anymore, and it hasn’t been fun for awhile…..just stop. It’s a privilege to thruhike. And this is all fundamentally by choice. So, it’s time for me to stop. Well….a better way to say it would maybe be that I chose a “different exit route”, since I’ll finish hiking about when I would have finished at Kakwa Lake-just no 85 km road walk out. There is no strict “stopping” on this trail, away from the large trailheads-it will still take me 2-3 days to get out.
Walking into the forest away from those cliffs, you get the sense that you are truly alone. I saw Adi’s steps, and I think Arisa’s. A broken branch here and there- or was that a moose. A decaying log with the bark stripped off where somebody had stepped. And, the thickest, spongy moss on the ground, maybe 4 inches deep, that sloughs away immediately-it’s all intact. There’s nobody out here. That’s the magic of this trail-and it is magic. The glaciers I saw dimly through the smoke today were more formidable than those on the Rockwall trail in Kootenay, world-famous, inundated with people. A massive, soaring, hanging Glacier-only in my dreams could I imagine such a thing, and I do dream if these things. And just- here it is, with shitty Trail, with no trail, nobody bothers to go back here, no budgets include this stupid route. It’s just what is here. The GDTA has no huge power-though they are a plucky group of people!! But it’s an impossible task, maintaining this thing. How do you build a bridge, when the massive ice floes of the spring will just immediately destroy it? The scale is hard for us to imagine–and I can’t make a slighting East Coast statement here, because it poignantly reminds me of how the Maine Appalachian Trail Club tries to deal with the 281 miles of AT in Maine-an impossible task, for similar reasons. But they are spirited, and patient, and positive. And people come back again and again to Maine, me included, because it’s magical-it won’t be tamed. This Trail-or “route”, the more accurate term I prefer, since there is frequently no trail- is magical for the same reasons. it goes between National Park Trail, (gentle and carefully maintained), dirt road, and routes that are more wild than any mountaineering route I’ve done in the state of Washington. As a matter of fact this thing makes EVERYTHING I’ve done in Washington feel positively domestic.
……maybe I’ll figure out how to climb Robson with my extra time.
Day 37
I got a VERY late start this morning at 9 am. I made my way back up the Jackpine River floodplain and then back up the hill to Jackpine Pass. The smoke was much thicker today-I couldn’t see the glaciers from Jackpine Pass that I had been able to see yesterday, but could hear them groaning and moving like glaciers do-a little creepy. I started up the High Route about 11 am. The air was cold, although the sun was out- the smoke blocked its rays. The High Route is probably incredibly beautiful with better visibility-it still wasn’t half bad walking with no visibility, just a little disorienting for navigation, but I had my phone and GPS. The GPS was kind of struggling probably because of the smoke which freaked me out and I hoped the smoke didn’t get worse. But the route was pretty much just due west for a long time so it wasn’t too bad. Then finally a few cairns appeared and a real Trail! I was pretty excited. The Trail dropped down to Blueberry Lake and then was excellent Trail (now no longer GDT, but an alternate) all the way down to Holmes River Road. I got down to the dirt road at 6 pm. It started to pour rain just as I got to the Trailhead so I put my tent up in the rain….then it stopped. But I am SO thankful that it didn’t rain when I was on the cross country alpine route. That would have been much worse. Just 26 miles of dirt road to the highway.
Day 38
I got out today.
I packed up and started walking a little after 8 down Holmes River Road. It was still raining a little in the morning but then the weather improved. Easy roadwalking-I was passed by 2 pickup trucks going the other direction, and the guy driving asked me about the conditions of Blueberry Trail-I thought I might get lucky and a catch a ride with them when they were on the way out from their day hike. I started to hear some machinery and then came upon some of the most awesomely huge and powerful logging equipment I’ve ever seen. Huge machines moving 70-100 foot trees. I flagged the first guy down so I could safely pass in the road and thought “they’re probably radioing each other up this road because it probably looks weird that I’m out here by myself.” There is NOTHING out here and I haven’t seen other people at all since Robson. A little while later a fully loaded log truck pulled up and the window rolled down and the driver asked “did you want a ride?” I was overjoyed-mostly because I didn’t have to walk another 18 miles down Holmes River Road and sleep in the rain, and also honestly because I felt a little like a kid on his birthday when he gets to ride in the fire truck. Pat, the driver, told me all about driving the truck and logging in the valley, fascinating-and he even offered to let me spend the night in he and his wife’s camper outside of town! I got to the Visitors Center and learned the only option for getting out of McBride in public transit was the ViaRail Train, the next day. So I texted Pat and he came and picked me up and brought me back to his home and I met his wife Karen. They have six kids aged 35 to 22 and Karen and three daughters are nurses. This couple loved on me so, so kindly, cooking me dinner and breakfast and visiting-I talked with Karen into the night and felt emotionally and spiritually cared for as well as physically cared for. I couldn’t have asked for a better end to the GDT, or more loving folks to help me get out of the backcountry. Thanks, you guys. The world doesn’t have enough people like you.
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