PNTA
I didn’t sleep well for fear of being discovered camping on likely-private land. I woke up with the first morning glow, took a leak next to a patch of bushes, and packed up my tent as fast as possible. I cherish the feeling of anonymity and flexibility in these situations – waking up, packing up quietly in the span of five minutes, and becoming just someone with a backpack eating half of a pizza at 6 AM.
I hoped to find stove fuel at the outdoor store, but I was disappointed yet again. I did find some sunscreen, which would come in handy since my straw hat had disintegrated by the time I made it to Concrete a few days earlier. The large 8oz fuel can I had bought in Oroville still had a little bit of fuel sloshing around in it, and realistically I’d only be using it 2-3 times before I made it west to Port Townsend – I’d be walking through much more populated areas for the next week or so on my way through the Puget Sound, and I anticipated finding food occasionally.
My next stop was the PNTA office, where I’d mailed hiking poles (I was still using a reflector pole as one of my hiking poles, which honestly held up incredibly well since Concrete) and new socks and sock liners. I walked on the Cascade Trail to get there. The PNTA office was like a weird little house on the outskirts of town, and I felt strange knocking on the door. But I was welcomed by Eric and Sterling, two of the main full-time employees. Sterling was excitable with golden retriever energy, and Eric was his foil, calm and focused. They gave me my packages, invited me to sit and read some of their history materials about the PNT, and insisted on taking me out to lunch and subsequently giving me a ride back out to the trailhead.
I happily obliged, feeling incredibly grateful for the generosity of these strangers. We went to lunch at a burger joint back in downtown Sedro, and they spent much of the time telling me about the PNT trail crews and convincing me to join. I remember feeling quite swayed toward the idea at the time (obvious foreshadowing).
On the way to the trailhead, my benefactors let me know of a good spot to camp at the top of Anderson Mountain, off of a little side trail just about seven miles up. They also gave me a map containing directions for a reroute on the approach to the Olympics about 130 miles ahead. Sterling’s last warning as he let me off at the trailhead was not to eat any blackberries by the road, because they often get sprayed with chemicals. They dropped me off out of their little red sedan at a nondescript gravel road and wished me good luck.
My hike up the road to the top of the mountain was fairly uneventful. I found the side trail at the top that led me to a wide-open flat area with a panoramic view, and decided to settle down there for the night.
