[pct-l] First North Bounders Reaching Canada - "Hello" to Steel-Eye - Scott Williamson - Seven Bears

[Keith Kurko]

While on a short PCT section hike southbound between Rainy Pass and Stehekin
last Saturday, I first ran into Swami (Cam Honan, a friendly Australian)
followed a couple hours later by Wayne (chewing a Stehekin Bakery pastry as
he walked) and Mouse.  Swami said that he started hiking from Mexico on May
9th, and Wayne and Mouse started on May 6th.  Cam seems to be almost a
professional full-time, year-round hiker and he told me about his blog, The
Hiking Life http://www.thehikinglife.com/.  Pretty amazing stuff on it.  


All three expected to be in Manning Park, B.C. in a few days (and have
probably finished up by now).  They remarked on this year's relative lack of
snow in California and the relative abundance of snow in Oregon and
Washington.


When I told Swami that I followed the PCT e-mail list, he got a big smile on
his face and told me a funny story about his 2007 PCT hike.  During it, he
met Steel-Eye (Chuck Chelin) on the trail, and then coincidentally later
found and returned Steel-Eye's lost glasses.  At the same time and again by
sheer coincidence, Steel-Eye had found a hat on the trail that turned out to
be Swami's lost hat!  In fond memory, Swami asked me to give Chuck a big
"Hello!" for him.


All three hikers mentioned running into Scott Williamson in the Stehekin
area, who is apparently preparing for another record-testing southbound
hike.  I talked with the Postmaster in the Stehekin Post Office, and he
mentioned that Scott had been in that morning and was planning to cache a
food drop in a bear storage food locker in one of the North Cascades
National Park's PCT campsites.  


Speaking of bears, I saw seven of them on the trail between Rainy Pass and
Stehekin, and all of them were within a 100 feet of me when I first saw
them!  There were three sows with four cubs.  Only two of the seven bears
were at a campsite; the others were just grazing along the trail.  On two
separate occasions, my first awareness of their presence was when bear cubs
scampered up nearby trees screeching at me!  On one of those two occasions,
Mama snorted menacingly about 70 feet away from me in the brush, and on the
other occasion the big female just seemed to glare at me.  I moved
down-trail with great alacrity both times!


Lastly, I saw a U.S. Forest Service sign posted on the southbound PCT near
the High Bridge campground notifying hikers that due to a collapsed foot log
across Agnes Creek there was a several mile detour in place to get around
the collapsed foot log.  The Forest Service sign had a crude map attached to
it.  This detour was news to me.


Keith in Seattle