Culture Shock
The forest looked a lot friendlier in the morning light. The sunlight streamed down between the trees and occasionally lit up the forest floor, making everything feel more expansive and alive. I filtered some water from the creek, then packed up my tent and tried to erase the imprint that I had left on the trailside vegetation.
I passed the ruins of an old cabin alongside the trail. It was now barely visible as a square-shaped indent sunken into the ground and covered in thick pillowy moss. There was a perfect little clearing behind it for me to pop a squat for my morning poop.
The trail was still covered in downed trees, even more so than the section I’d hiked the previous evening. My progress was slow and frustrating. Morning Star and Cookie Monster later told me that they counted over 100 downed trees across this section of the trail. My body was covered in scrapes and dirt from sliding underneath tree trunks and pushing through pine needles. The forest abruptly ended in a clearing covered in thick chest-high bushes (0683P). I changed into my shorts for the climb up toward Frosty Pass. The bushes were overgrown across the trail and made the climb extra annoying.
The bushes thinned out toward the top of the climb and the trail suddenly became much more photogenic. I was only a mile away from the PNT/PCT junction, and I’d heard rumors about how well-maintained the PCT tread was. I hiked down the other side of the pass so quickly that when I made it to the PCT, I accidentally turned the wrong way (north). It was only half a mile later when I saw a sign pointing toward the Canadian border that I realized my mistake.
My first encounters with PCT hikers were pretty surreal. The last humans I’d seen had been Bugs and Moose at a trail junction two days ago. I was desperate for human contact. On the PNT, two people running into each other will always stop to have a conversation. Not so on the PCT. Most hikers barely managed a grunt while passing by. It was hard not to feel a little bit offended, but I passed so many PCT hikers in the first couple of hours that I could see why they were tired of talking to people.
The scenery here was absolutely stunning. The trail was wide and perfectly-maintained with hardly a pebble in the way. I stopped for lunch at the top of the “Devil’s Stairway” (SW of 0689P), a section of tight, perfectly-groomed switchbacks leading up the shoulder of a mountain. I got into a conversation with a section hiker (if I couldn’t talk to a PCT hiker, I had to settle for a daywalker) and we talked about the PNT for a while. They told me they’d camped with Cookie Monster and Morning star the previous night at Woody Pass (C695P), just a few miles down the trail! This gave me some hope that I’d catch up with them in a few days.
One of the big challenges I can remember from this day is finding a place to poop. When my body adjusts to a 4000-5000 calorie diet, the time delta between the realization that I have to poop and the realization that I’m going to have an emergency is often as low as 5-10 minutes. Realization #1 came to me on a wide-open stretch of trail above treeline (around the third-to-last picture in the slideshow above). Realization #2 came to me still before I crossed over the apex of the mountain. There were PCT hikers everywhere and no secluded spots to be found. I ended up taking the world’s quickest hiker poop behind a tiny group of scraggly subalpine fir trees. I buried it with my trowel and finished cleaning up about 30 seconds before a group of hikers came around the bend.
Turning from the PCT back onto the PNT was a fun reality check. The trails were overgrown, confusing, and covered in blowdowns. One stream crossing (C700) was so unclear that I ended up bushwhacking uphill until I could find the trail again. A massive old cedar had fallen down over a switchback with thick forest on either side, and the best option was to tiptoe across the log, suspended 6 feet in the air over the switchback, and climb off on the other side.
Of course, these things are what make the PNT special. It wouldn’t be as Fun if the trail was smooth and perfectly-graded like the PCT the whole way.
My campsite was a beautiful little clearing on the mountainside, protected from the wind by a wall of trees. I made it there with just enough daylight left to go on an unhinged huckleberry-picking spree. I cooked them over my stove with some oats, powdered milk, and a mashed-up cinnamon pop tart. I fell asleep satisfied and happy with a belly full of trail cobbler.