CS2635 to Manning Park Lodge – 9-19

This was our last morning on the trail. It was raining and cold. I got dressed in my tent as usual, but kept my wool sleeping shirt on as an undershirt, and wore my wool sleeping socks instead of my wet hiking socks — who cares if my sleepwear gets wet now? I won’t be sleeping in it again.

The rain drumming on my rain fly quieted down as I packed up for the last time. Bundled up, I poked my head out of my tent, and saw why.

Once outside, the snow was pretty, but cold. It melted into my hands, making them numb. Packing up my tent was harder than ever. But I wouldn’t have to do it again.

After getting started, the brisk hiking warmed me up. I could enjoy the look of a dusting of snow all over everything.

Within a few hours, the terrain completely transformed under several inches of snow.

The snow started to accumulate on me and on my gear. Which was picturesque at first, but then it started to melt, soaking every fabric that wasn’t waterproof with ice water.

As we started to descend, it warmed up slightly. This was bad. It wasn’t warm enough to warm our soaked selves up, it was just warm enough to make the trail under the snow muddy instead of frozen. The fresh snow hid slippery trail surfaces. I fell on hidden rocks and mud a couple times, banging me up and grinding snow into my clothes.

We descended further, and the snow became slush puddles covering long stretches of the trail. To keep warm, we needed to run, but this was difficult when we couldn’t step on the trail. Sometimes, we would waddle at high speed with one foot on each edge of the trail. Other times, we would run on one edge until it got too steep, then jump over the puddle to the other edge so we didn’t tip over.

Normally, this would hurt my feet, since there were a lot of sharp rocks here. But, my feet were numb, and felt like hooves, so we danced our way down the trail with little caution. If we didn’t go fast enough to keep warm, we would certainly get sick in this weather.

We were still wearing pretty much the same gear we’d used in the 100-degree-plus weather of the Mojave. Minute after cold minute dragged by.

Then, suddenly, we were at the border monument, the official end of the PCT.

It was raining and we were cold. We found the register, and Elizabeth wrote a short note in it — she’d already composed something much longer, but didn’t want to linger and cool down. I just wrote my name. Even hiding under the trees, the register got wet, making the ink bleed. I doubt if my name is legible.

The end of the PCT is not the end of the trail. I don’t mean this in a metaphorical sense — the northern terminus is literally in the middle of the woods. You need to hike 8 more miles into Canada, to Manning Provincial Park, to get to a road. So we continued north.

As we left the monument, some other hikers arrived. One started laughing giddily as he stared at the monument.

In Canada, we lost more elevation, and I felt a bit more comfortable as it warmed up. I looked at my thermometer. It showed 35 degrees.

I was kind of hoping it would be terrible right up to the very end. I could kick open the door to the Manning Park Lodge, covered in a crust of powdery snow, and take a warm shower. But, the weather and the trail conditions got more and more mild as we approached civilization. Elizabeth had warmed up enough to use her phone, so she played her victory playlist (Chariots of Fire, We Are The Champions, The Final Countdown, a couple songs about eye of the tiger, etc.)

At last, we reached the highway, and walked the last half-mile to the Manning Lodge. The PCT ends with a road walk.

We were in Canada, in civilization.

0 miles left.