Besides hiking the Oregon Coast Trail, I didn’t hike this year. I don’t know why, just content, I guess.
That is until I picked up some hikers hitchhiking into the town by me. One of them was Freebird. A “repeat offender” long distance hiker, like me. I have met him a few times on the PCT and we know some of the same hikers.
He was hiking the Pacific Northwest Trail. A trail that runs from Glacier National Park to the Washington coast. It crosses the Pacific Crest Trail. It comes within 5 miles of my cabin.
Even though in the past, the PNT has not been a popular trail, there were 13 hikers in town that day for a small concert that was happening. They said that earlier there was kind of a trail days celebration in another town nearby.
It was weird seeing hikers in my town. It was like my worlds collided. Seeing other hikers made me discontent and made me long to be on a trail.
I have a couple books on the trail but Freebird gave me Li Brannfors email. He is the Johnathan Ley of the PNT li_brannfors at hotmail.com After emailing him I had the maps, tracks, way-points and notes loaded up in my smartphone Gaia GPS app and was ready to head out when fires broke out and threatened my cabin and closed the trail.
Then I got all excited about my cabin burning down and started planning on living in a tepee for the winter and forgot about hiking.
Well, the fires didn’t make it to my cabin, so, I’m tucked away in my cabin for another winter.
I still plan to hike that trail. I think I’m about at the halfway point. I live between the CDT and PCT, so it’s cool to know I could walk out my door and walk to either trail.
I always worried about the water situation, but Freebird said there was lots of water. All the hikers I talked to said they liked the trail.
