Rainy pass to stehekin

Please find attached more pics from Sarah’s phone of our last week in paradise.

We spent a very pleasant night at the Den where we went out for drinks with Emilia and her husband Justin Aka J-dog + finished the night with a bomb fire  and spot of rock painting at the den.
Tuesday morning we got a ride 20ish miles from Mazama to Rainy pass with a couple of climbing dudes. We met Colin and his pal at the Den and they kindly gave us a ride patiently waiting for us to finish our admin tasks. Such a nice couple of chaps.

After saying our goodbyes at the trailhead it was great to be back out in the woods. Towns have a habbit of sucking you in and if you are not careful you can stay forever.
It was a tough 15 mile day where the temperatures sky rocketted. I think what made it worse was the amount of lush vegetation at these lower elevations. The stretch from rainy to stehekin was mainly downhill the overgrown trail acted as a heat trap and got hotter and hotter throughout the day.

It was also interesting to see the amount of different insect species with butterflies filling the air like confetti as we trudged on through.

As we hiked through the ravine we were teased with glimpses of a crystal clear river winding its way through the valley beneath. It got so hot and hummid that we had to get the sun umbrellas out as we were both running out of steam fast.
We where finally rewarded with beautiful river cascading through the mountains + spent an hour with our feet in the ice cold water.
After spending more time than we should have cooling down we got back on trail and hiked until 7pm. As we descended we crossed a number of suspended bridges that were very wobbley.

We were warned that the area we were camping had a high bear population. Then suddenly I heard a cracking in the undergrowth and as I scanned the brush I saw the head and shoulders of a black bear running in the opposite direction. He emerged again about 100ft away where we saw all of this magnificent creature as he scarpered. His coat was thick and shiny black and he looked very impressive and healthy.
The trail zig zagged down the mountain in the form of switch backs and as we turned the next corner the same bear was standing on the trail about 50 feet from us. We started banging our hiking sticks together and shouting “hey bear”. Again he bolted effortlessly running up the steep sided mountain through thick brush. The next hour or so were a little sketchy and we were glad to put some distance between us.

As we neared the Bridge creek campsite we were also passed by some other day hikers out for the 4th July celebration. They confirmed they had also just passed a bear 20ft from the trail. Claiming that they had made a load of noise, but the bear didn’t move a muscle and seemed nit at all bothered by the presence of humans.

When we got to camp Sarah was understanding a little shaken. Luckily there were bear lockers so we could safely stash our food without the need to worry about hanging.
As I washed my feet in the stream next to tent small fish swam next to me. Close enough I could reach out and touch them. Bats also darted through the night sky picking up small insects from the surface of the water. My headtorch illuminated there delicate form as they went on there way.

Unsurprisingly Sarah didn’t sleep well that night. Although our alarm went off at 5am as we had to hussle to the trailhead for 9am the bus ride to stehekin.
We managed to make it with only minutes to spare. We were greeted with an open canopy old fashioned bus with american flags hanging from the wing mirrors.
It was a very pleasant journey down to stehekin where the driver narrated interesting facts about the local area as we went. We stopped at a much talked about bakery before we reached the lake to pick up some tasty breakfast treats.

When we reached the 50 mile long stehekin lake it was crystal clear and aqua blue. This place is amazing. Something our pal Vincent had text me the night before on my inreach. He wasn’t lying and if we are not careful we could easily wittle away nother day in this paradise.

We had sent a box to the post office at stehekin and after meeting up with some familiar faces we collected outer box of goodies. We still had a bit of food and additional snacks that we picked up in mazama, so we ended up bouncing some of our fresh supplies further down the trail. Hiker hunger hasn’t kicked in yet, but when it does we will need to up our food intake.

So that’s all for now. Do we stay here today after only 5miles or push on and catch the 2pm shuttle back to trail. It’s impossible to say at this moment as I write this with my feet soaking in the icey cold lake and the sun shining down on us.