As I was making it back up to the PNT proper that morning, I saw a fairly short figure carrying hiking westbound at an alarming speed. Was there a PNT hiker behind me who I hadn’t heard of? I knew that Shepherd, Karma, and Teddy weren’t far behind. Bugs and Moose were at least a half-day ahead, having taken an alternate route to bypass trails they’d already hiked. Cookie Monster and Morning Star should be over a day ahead; Rebecca and Marguerite as well. The trail community was so small that I could hardly imagine seeing a thru-hiker that I hadn’t already heard of.

But this person I saw from a distance was unmistakably a thru-hiker. The filthy Hyperlite pack, the Altra trail runners, the cut calf muscles, ratty shirt, short shorts.

My questions were answered when I made it to the next campsite for a snack break. I meandered along the ridgeline into the National Park boundary, to the Home Lake campsite. A little stream flowed behind an AT-style shelter, and the hiker I’d seen earlier was sitting there. After asking if he was a PNT hiker, I learned that his trail name was Recon, and he’d started a few weeks after me in Glacier National Park. I didn’t need to do very much mental math to realize that he’d been hiking a huge number of miles per day. It was nice to finally talk to another thru-hiker – we were both planning to stay down in the valley at Bear Camp, so I continued on a few minutes after him, knowing that we’d see each other again.

I took a long lunch break at Constance Pass, scrambling up toward one of the peaks to get a better view. The wind was grating toward the peak, but someone had made a wind barrier out of small rocks there, and I was grateful to have a bit of shelter while I made myself a tuna wrap.

I had a rapid 4000-foot descent ahead of me. Just as I started curving down the mountain, I came upon a large patch of snow with markings in it. Coming closer, I could make it out

CM + MS

and a large smiley face – Cookie Monster and Morning Star’s signature. About 20 feet below that, another message:

BUGS

+

MOOSE


Seeing my friends’ names in the snow gave me such a jolt of joy that I shouted out loud. I felt so much less alone knowing they’d just been here. I left my own mark underneath theirs, and started running straight down the hill. The trail soon descended into some more beautiful cedar-fir forest. As much as I loved being toward the mountaintops, It felt wonderful to be back in the comfort and safety of the forest.

As soon as I finished the descent, it was extremely fast hiking along the flat valley floor. I coasted to the Deception Creek campsite. Here, I found some extremely plump huckleberries, and I also had plenty of extra time, so I took a long break to enjoy some huckleberry “cobbler” with brown sugar Pop Tarts and powdered milk. I sat next to the creek and watched the water pour over the boulders.

Recon was already eating dinner by the time I made it to Bear Camp. There was a little shelter there, and we agreed to share it – neither of us wanted to stay in there alone at a place with “bear” in the name. While I sat down to eat dinner, I learned that he had taken a year off to hike long-distance trails. He hiked the Appalachian Trail in the previous year, then flew to New Zealand to hike the Te Araroa during the southern hemisphere’s summer season, then flew back to the US to hike the PNT.

We set up our sleeping pads on the hard wooden bunk platforms inside the shelter, and I was asleep before the sun went down.