Fortunately for us, the clouds broke when we reached the top and the sun shone brightly down. Standing on Bunker Hill on the fourth day, the high point of the trail and the midway point of our hike, my husband and I watched a landscape that had bright blue skies and storm clouds and rain and sun and snow all at once. Hike this trail for its wide open spaces, winding mountain ridges, expansive vistas, and remote stands of trees. But if you’re looking for something wilder, far from the grid and away from the crowds of the Olympics or Alpine Lake Wilderness area, then this might just be the trail for you. What used to be a bridge is now a gnarled carcass of wood.Īt times, the trail became a faint shadow that we followed by feel as much as sight, with an occasional cairn to keep our spirits up.Ī burned out section of the Boundary Trail.įor some, the challenges of this hike will outweigh the rewards. We could see where blowdowns had been cut back from the trail over the years, but there were still hundreds and hundreds of fresh logs to scramble around and over during 20+ miles of trail during the third and fourth days of our hike.īridges were blown out at every major crossing, and others just concrete supports. Sections of the Boundary Trail are freshly maintained and easy to follow while others have been almost completely swallowed back into the earth by fire, erosion, and time. Part of what makes this trail a special experience is how vividly it demonstrates the tug of war between man and nature to keep routes like this open at all. September 1st is still summer (not necessarily in the North Cascades).
Pacific northwest trail full#
We aren’t the only ones out here hiking this trail (we went two full days at one point without seeing another person). Basic expectations about backcountry travel were pushed to their limits on this section of the Pacific Northwest Trail: The path on the ground will match the map in my hand (spoiler: it didn’t). We were careful after that to plan our remaining days to end at lower elevation, and eventually finished our section hike on schedule at Hart’s Pass.īut that second night had set the tone for the rest of the trip. We got lucky on this trip: the next morning revealed that we had camped only 300 feet above the snow level. The snow line visible above the trees along the Boundary Trail. As soon as it was dark we fell asleep to the barely perceptible sounds of snow accumulating on top of our tent. We rigged our sleeping pads and quilts together into a makeshift double bag and huddled together while looking at the maps, taking stock of our options in case we needed to bail out midway on the hike. We were also nervous because while the first leg of the trail had been well-maintained and clearly signed, an eastbound PNT hiker had told us earlier in the day that the route would significantly deteriorate after Cathedral Lakes. Over the next four days, the two trails overlapped, and we hugged the border between Washington State and Canada, often only a half mile to the north, before turning south at the Pasayten River for the final two days and 25 miles to reach our pickup location at Hart’s Pass.īut Hart’s Pass was still a long way away on that second night, and with the snow coming down hard, we wondered if we had bitten off more than we could chew. We started from the official beginning of the Boundary Trail at the Iron Gate Trailhead, 20 miles northwest from Loomis, WA, before meeting up with the Pacific Northwest Trail near Horseshoe Meadow, 6.5 miles away. The section we chose is nestled in Washington's Pasayten Wilderness, just on the other side of the Cascade Range’s rainshadow and east of North Cascades National Park. Having both hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014, we’d experienced a heavy wanderlust beginning to creep back into our day-to-days, so we decided to try out a section of one of the lesser known National Scenic Routes.
We were camped near Cathedral Lake on September 1, at mile 26 of the Boundary Trail, an 80-mile, 6-day section of the larger Pacific Northwest Trail that stretches 1,200-miles from Glacier National Park in Montana to the Olympic Coast in Washington State. “Has it ever snowed on your birthday before?”
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