Day 156

Trail miles: 29.8

Total: terminus and back to 2647.2

I felt unbelievably tired yesterday and woke up with a sinus infection. So today was even worse. We were headed downhill for a while, but as soon as the long uphill started, I fell behind. The hill up and down from Rock Pass were steep. We passed Harts pass yesterday so all I could think of once we passed it was that we had to do these hills all over again tomorrow. I felt sluggish toward as we were getting close to Hopkins Lake. I made it a little after lunchtime. I had to sit down and just rest for a little before doing anything. I blame it entirely on the sinus infection to fatigue me more than usual. Raechel was also feeling similarly, but we weren’t sure if it was what I had or the wildfire smoke affecting her. She wore a bandana over face when it got really bad as we got closer to Canada. Lifeguard ended up doing the same thing once she dug her buff out of the bottom of her bag. We ate lunch, set up our tents, and hung our food. Then filled out bags with only the necessities for the terminus! It was so wonderful how light they were. We were able to hike very fast down the hill. I turned my GroPro on when we got to the last switchback and we all finished together! We were greeted with cheers from hikers who were reveling in their accomplishments. We got plenty of individual pictures, group shots, and fireball shots. Then we made the TikTok I forced everyone to act out. 

You could see a huge smoke plume over the mountain on the opposite side of the terminus. That’s when someone announced a message they received on their inreach: the end of the trail had been closed and we needed to leave. There was a lot of panic and confusion going on. We heard there was a ranger at the lake we had our tents set up so we hoped we could ask him if we needed to hike to Harts Pass tonight. That would have been a 54 mile day! A large group made the decision to walk into Canada where there was an exit within 8 miles. Little did they know that they were headed toward the largest wildfire in the area. The problem was that the wildfire maps ended at the border, so they were going into Canada blind.

On our way back to the lake, Krista led us up the hill at a pace where everyone, except maybe Brad, was uncomfortable hiking. Halfway up the hill, we slowed down to a reasonable pace. I think people were just anxious about the uncertainty. But Ranger Angus was waiting on the trail as soon as we got to the lake to answer our questions. He seemed so calm that our worries were put at ease. He said we weren’t in any immediate danger and we would be safe camping at the lake for the night. He would also be camping here so we felt even more at ease, having someone with direct information near us. So instead of hiking out immediately, we would try to sleep some and head out at 4:30am tomorrow. I made dinner (which rehydrated poorly) and tried to sleep.