September 8:Last Full Day on the Trail

It was a wierd feeling waking up and knowing that today was our last full day before hitting the border. It was a chilly morning, but the sun was on us which helped warm us up. It was another day of blue skies and sunshine, and as we climbed up to over 7000 ft, we took in the views, from up high. The mountains in northern Washington are just spectacular. It gives you the feeling of being up high in big mountains, even though they aren't nearly as big as the Sierras.

We went through several passes today- many high, some low- the first being Hart's Pass, where we found a Guard Station, pit toilets, and picnic tables. It was a great place for our first break and the last road we would cross before Manning Park in Canada.

Eventually we came to a junction just before Woody Pass. We stood at the junction on a ridge and looked to the left where we saw Woody Pass just about level with where we stood. Then we looked at where the trail went, dropping several hundred feet down into the valley, and then switchbacking back up to Woody Pass. We had read in our notes that it would be tempting to take the side trail straight across to the pass, but that it was an abandonded trail and that if taken, we would surely die :). The side trail was cut across Powder Mtn, and the side of this particular mtn was basically a scree field, and it had been abandoned probably because it was a pain in the butt to maintain. So, in the interest of staying alive, we sucked it up, and headed down the rail into the valley.

Our goal was to camp on one of the flat spots on the way up to Woody Pass. We had been told by another hikr that there were several good campsites in the area, and there wasn't much for good camping beyond it for several miles.

We had just gotten high enough to where we would be hitting a campsite soon, when Flippy says, "Hey! There's a bear!" Great. That's just what you want to see when you are wanting to make camp. Of course he went running off, but there was no way of knowing if or when he would come back to check us out.

We decided to make a campfire, since that will help keep the bears at bay. We ate our dinner around the fire, and the climbed into our sleeping bags for the night.

It was around 3:00am that we heard Flippy growling loudly into the night: "grrrraaaaaarrrrr! grrrraaaaaarrrrr!" Apparently he had been sleeping in his Tarptent when the bear had nudged him through the tent with it's nose. This had startled him awake (obviously), and then the bear started it's loud breathing. Flippy, working through the sleepish haze, knw he had to scare it off, so he just growled at it pretty loudly! It was pretty funny. The bear ran off, and Mark and Flippy built another fire. We all fell back asleep, and the bear never came back. We hadn't had a bear in our camp for the whole hike, and on our last night on the trail one shows up. I guess it was bound to happen. The good part was that there were no mice for once. No mice, but one bear. Three down, one to go. Tomorrow we head for the border!

Total Miles:2643.1
Miles Today:24.5
Camp 134:Last Night on the Trail

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