At the end of July I was back on the Pacific Crest Trail. I was determined to complete the Washington sections I had missed last year. My first day out was a ridge line wander from Steven’s Pass to Pear Lake.
north cascades
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My first backpacking trip this year revealed that I’m not in the same shape I was last year by this time, mentally or physically. Read on to find out what I learned from this shakedown hike.
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I had only been home from the PCT for about a week before I started thinking about what we could do for Labour Day weekend. I got the all clear from my physio to hike again and chose the Heather Trail in the north end of Manning Provincial Park. We could drive up to about 6000 feet and start the trail in subalpine meadows. We’d keep our mileage low and take it easy on the trail.
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After successfully beating off early-season colds, it was time to get back out on a serious trail. Last weekend we…
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I was completely oblivious of our nearest national park until only a couple years ago. Now that I’ve had the chance to explore it, I consider it one of my favourite parks, and one of the best places to venture for a weekend of hiking.
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I would definitely count Skyline Divide as one of my favourite hikes. It is a perfect distance for a day hike, not too easy but not too hard either, and offers insanely beautiful views for the better part of the trail.
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What an awesome send-off before we venture down to California! We spent this past Saturday night in the Park Butte lookout tower on the South-West side of Mt. Baker and the mountain was an amazing sight! Our last training hike ended up being one of the better ones, thanks to a few different factors.
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This year we knew we had to get our packs on and do a “shake down.” Thankfully we are lucky enough to have an amazing National Park right in our back yard. North Cascades National Park is about a 2 hour drive from where we live and has a huge variety of backcountry trails. We studied our map and some trip reports and finally decided to hike alongside Ross Lake on the East Bank Trail.
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Last week we drew out a 3-month plan, filling in tasks that need to be accomplished through the weeks and listing out training hikes to get us in shape. The first hike we chose to do is one I was familiar with, having done it with some friends a couple summers ago.
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At first I really didn’t feel like blogging about our hike from last weekend as there isn’t a whole lot to…