I entered the North Cascades National Park with Fitty Shrimp and Money Shot. We are tiny among the thousand year old trees and the glaciated peaks.
I crossed the Chilliwack River in a cable car. Pull the cart over, climb in with your pack, and pull yourself across.
After exiting the park we tried hitching a ride to the next trailhead. We got picked up by a nice couple driving up the mountain to watch the sunset from Artist Point. Artist Point was past our trailhead but we were easily persuaded to go along and get some stunning views of Mt. Baker.
The mountain goats like this spot too! They'll climb up the mountain single file along steep scree slopes. We watched as one of the goats got stuck and couldn't follow the treacherous route that was being led. The goat just stood in place and started crying out to the others. The goats out front turned around, came back for the lone goat, and choose a different path. Photo from Money Shot:
Back on trail, Fitty Shrimp rock hopping across a river.
And Money Shot.
Rock hopping. I'm doing it wrong.
Here we are stationed at one of the many campgrounds around Baker Lake. After a night getting drenched in the rain, we took shelter and hung our gear to dry.
There was a nice trail that would have taken us around the lake but it was still raining and we were long overdue for a town day. This sheriff saw us walking the road and gave us a ride to Concrete.
The motel in Concrete provided us with a couple beds, clean towels, and a cat.
We resupplied at the apple store.
The walk out of town was 20 miles on an old rail trail to Sedro-Woolley.
Marijuana is legal here. Retailers like this one are all over Washington.
And on trail, just down the road from here, I stumbled upon another Pacific Northwest phenomena- the bikini barista. Perhaps I should've known with a name like Foxy Lady Latte that this was not going to be an ordinary coffee shop experience. Pay $3.50 and a girl in a bikini makes your coffee. Espresso stands like this are all over Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. When you're out here and stumble across an expression stand with a name like Java Juggs, you'll know what to expect.
On the the road to Anacortes. The sign adds a little geographic perspective to our journey. We're pretty close Seattle and Vancouver.
There's a big oil refinery in Anacortes. Here, we're on Fidalgo Island in the Puget Sound overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. That's salt water down there. And I don't know much about Juan de Fuca but our map notes say that this guy was once a badass mother Fuca.
This is Lake Erie. Apparently there's more than one Lake Erie!
And a really cool store. This place has been open for 95 years. It's a nice place to hang out for a bit while it's raining out.
Money Shot found a rope swing.
This dog saw us walking on the road and decided to come out and join us and take a hike with Mike. Now we're stuck caring for a dog that just adopted us. It was fun for a few miles but now we're stuck with him. He was ours now. He wouldn't leave our side.
Here we are crossing the bridge at Deception Pass taking us to Whidbey Island. This is the point of no return for the dog now as we just crossed onto a different island and this heavily trafficked bridge is his only way back home. Shit, what do we do now? There is no way we could take this dog with us.
The dog followed us to our campsite. We shared our dinner with the dog and even tried to pawn him off on other campers. We named him Shitface. He was a really was great dog even if he had a bad habit of trying to hump you from behind. He was super friendly and got along with other dogs. Our dog problem was solved in the morning when Shitface followed me to the bathroom and a ranger told me that my dog needed to be on a leash. I told the ranger the story.
"Well, this isn't actually my dog..."
It was a little sad to see Shitface go. Hopefully, they found the dog's proper owner. Fitty Shrimp, Money Shot, and I hiked out that morning dog free.
We met these guys, Jeremy and Jodi, our first night out on the trail camping in Glacier. They live on Whidbey Island. We exchanged contact info and they've been tracking us the entire way. They told us when we get to Whidbey Island, we could stay with them. They picked us up from Oak Harbor and took us back to their house. Jeremy made us dinner and had us sample all of his home brewed beers. Thanks, Jeremy and Jodi!
On the ride to their house, we experienced one of the most amazing sunsets ever. We tried to chase it down but this was all that was left. Had we only gotten to this spot 10 minutes earlier...
Oak Harbor was having a music festival this weekend - 2 stages, 30 bands, and lots of vendors. This is now the second music festival we walked in on during our hike!
We met lots of locals and got several offers for places to stay. This is Brian and Tina. We camped in their backyard and they invited us in for breakfast in the morning. Our other option would have been to spend the night with some doomsday preppers that offered us a place to stay along with an endless supply of dried foods. Brian and Tina were way cooler!
And we stayed in town again the next night. We were about to walk out of town when Rick and Laura invited us to their home. Their friends invited us all over for dinner and Rick and Laura gave us a place to sleep, made us breakfast, and gave us food to carry out in the morning! Rick and Laura never even heard of the PNT but are hikers themselves and made it clear they wish to continue being trail angels in the future supporting hikers going through their town!
Check out at the map, we were all over this this place! It's hard to leave when receiving this level of generosity and hospitality.
We did eventually get out of Oak Harbor. We can see Mt. Rainer in the distance, the highest mountain in Washington. Photo from Money Shot.
Here I am walking the bluffs along the water.
An old lighthouse.
And some old military relics from WWI.
This is now a state park and we can explore inside the bunkers.
We take the ferry from Whidbey Island to Port Townsend.
In true hiker trash fashion, we camped in the baseball dugouts at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. Here's Fitty Shrimp in the visitor dugout at field #2.
