Pacific Northwest Trail: Yaak, MT to Northport, WA

We got a hitch out of Yaak.

Spiff and I hiked up to Northwest peak. There was a cabin on top of the mountain. We stayed up here but I didn't sleep much. The winds were howling all night.    

We had some ridge walking to do.

It was an exciting knife edge ridge walk with some steep drop offs. 

Look at all those stars.

At Feist Creek there was a little resort and restaurant.

And just as we were about to hike out after lunch, the owner came over to introduce himself and invited us to stay the night. We showered and camped out next to the pond. The owner gave us the keys to the building so we could make ourselves breakfast in the morning. Hikers Bevo and Sharky were there with us too.

This place was a true hiker's oasis complete with its own waterfall.

Bean said goodbye to us in Bonners Ferry. He's from England and has a return deadline. We camped at the fairgrounds in town. The sprinkler system gave us a nice early morning wake up call. 

Here we are hanging around outside the library. Free wifi.

Some nice vender gave us lemonade at the farmers market.

We got a hitch out of town from who also turned out to be our tour guide, stopping every few minutes to get out and tell us about the local history. 

We took an alternate that Lynne recommend. She dropped us of at the Long Canyon Trail and we took that until it meet up with the primary route.

We soon started the dreaded 7 mile bushwack which started off with a nice ridge walk.

But at some point we had to descend from the ridge. The guidebook says that this would be the worst spot on the entire trail to get injured. 

"In my opinion that plunge off the top would be the very worst place on the whole trail to hurt yourself. With the indistinct route location, the vertical terrain and the dense brush/forest you'd never be found if incapacated there."

We didn't even make it out of the bushwack that night. We were trying to walk through thick brush, over downed trees, and along the stream. 

It was very frustrating. But you cans really get too frustrated out here. There are so many huckleberries. Just take a break and eat the berries!

It got late and Fitty found a nice little rock to camp on. Sometimes when faced with terrible bushwacks, the best thing to do is set up camp and deal with it in the morning.

Spiff made it out of the bushwack way before we did. Since Fitty has a tracking device, Spiff was tracking our progress and met us at a road with large cans of iced tea for us. Spiff found a camp store and knew exactly when we were going to arrive. You can track us as well by following this link.

https://share.delorme.com/FittyShrimp

We made it to Priest Lake. Here's Spiff on the sandy beach.

In Metaline Falls, 11 hikers were in town and Trail Angel Mary had us over her house for a cookout.

Mary is a PNT board member and let's hikers camp in her garden. 

Mary did my laundry and drove our crew to Northport. We were planning on hiking the 40 miles but unfortunately the trail was closed due to a nearby forest fire. We could see the fire from town. Money Shot got the photo. 

This is where Mary dropped us off in Northport.

We ended up staying at a local organic farm in Northport. Trail angels Bruce and Shirley own this sweet farm. We picked lots of delicious fruits- apples strawberries, apricots, plums, and blackberries.

And of course we got to sit in their little pool outside.

That's all for now. We'll have some more bushwacking coming up and as Fitty says, this bush isn't going to whack itself.