Day 182 (18 October) - Mile 2588.91 - 2607.41

Highway 20, Rainy Pass to East Bank Trailhead

No alarm was set so we all slept in till 8:00 AM. I finally asked out loud, "What are we going to do?"  Brad shrugged his shoulders. I told them what the others has planned and that I thought we should go for it as well and complete the hike from Mexico to Canada. Brad agreed, but said he wouldn't do the walk along the highway.  Who could blame him?  Because I want to keep my continuous footpath, I have to walk the 18.5 miles from Rainy Pass to the East Bank Trailhead. At least I won't have to walk alone since Sunshine and Sherlock are as crazy as me.

As Brad stayed in bed, Tim drove me to Mazama where we picked up Sunshine and Sherlock and headed to Rainy Pass. We were ready to hike at 11:00 AM.

It was cold and rainy when we took off from highway mile-marker 57. We weren't sure of the exact distance we need to walk, but it is around 20 miles. Every mile marker we passed was another mile down. They actually felt like they were going by pretty quickly. We stopped for a couple of short breaks, but pretty much walked almost non-stop. 

Around 1:00 PM we saw the others go by on their way to the trailhead. Less than one hour later, Trail Angel Ravensong pulled over and said she dropped the others off at the trailhead and they hoped to see us tonight or tomorrow morning on the trail. Cool. 
We kept going and around 5:00 PM a car pulls over. It was the Cush Cousins with Mandolin and Stump. They got off trail in Stehekin and rented a car. They dropped Speedy Gonzolas  off at the trailhead, but they are headed south to maybe hike a section in Northern California that they skipped. After catching up some more they took off and we continued on the highway. 

We came to a trailhead 3 miles before the one we were aiming for. Sunshine and Sherlock decided to try to hit the trail there since their feet was hurting from walking the pavement. I had to stay on the road since Tim and Brad should be passing soon and I didn't want them to worry if I wasn't on the road. 

I continued on and Tim showed up 10 minutes later. I had about 2.5 miles to go, so they went ahead to the trailhead where I showed up 45ish minutes later.

Entering Ross Lake National Recreation Area

Brad and I set up our tents as border patrol showed up to see what we were up to. After he left Sunshine and Sherlock appeared and they were approached by the patrolman. While we all hung out more another border patrol showed up. We were finally left alone and Tim took off and Sunshine and Sherlock decided to head up the trail a bit to pitch their tents. If we weren't already setup we would have moved away from the road but we didn't feel like unpitching, so we stayed. Let's just hope we aren't interrogated in the middle of the night. 

Tomorrow we will wake at 6:30 AM and hike maybe 20 miles. Oh, it is 33 miles to the border, so we should be there in 2 days baring any unforeseen circumstances. So, until tomorrow...

Home for the night