8/12/20 PCT Update #1: Harts Pass—> Northern Terminus —> Stehekin

Dear friends and family,


We’re writing from Stehekin, Washington, with a quick update about the first leg of our hike. Stehekin is a remote town on a lake in northern Washington. You can only walk, fly, or take a boat to get here. There’s a bakery in town where we had pizza and chocolate chip cookies when we got in earlier today. 

We started our hike at Harts Pass At around 5pm on August 7th. Harts Pass is about as far north as you can drive to up here in Washington. From there it was a 30 mile hike north to the Canadian border, where we then flipped back and retraced our steps to start hiking southbound. 

Getting to the monument at the northern terminus was surprisingly moving for us! We thought of all of the friends we had made when we did our long section hike in 2016 through SoCal and how it must have felt for them to get there that year. And how amazing it is that that trail that we had hiked through the deserts of SoCal is connected to what we’re walking up here.  

We’re on what is likely the end of the south bound bubble of hikers but we feel really lucky to be up here during this time of year. There’s barely any snow on the trail and the weather has been beautiful. We pass dozens of ripe blueberries and raspberries and emerald lakes. We crossed into North Cascades National Park and encountered three bears within about three miles! There are a few PCT hikers that we’ve run into (mostly early northbound hikers) but we’ve mainly encountered weekend hikers. 

We feel so lucky to have had all of the support we’ve had to even get to this point, especially with all of the unique logistical challenges with thru hiking right now. A friend of a friend picked up our car at Harts Pass and drove it to Wenatchee, a very good friend is driving up from Oakland to pick up the car and take it to Johnathan’s parents’, we’re storing most of our possessions in a friend’s basement, and we have so much help with mailing resupply boxes. 

We hope that the weather continues to stay in our favor and we can complete our trip as planned!

With love,

Rebecca & Johnathan 

from my iPhone

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