The 5 mile bushwhack and the day that broke me

Remember the bushwhack I mentioned at the end of my last post? And how I said it might take us 7 hours? Well the joke is on us because it took 10 hours. Here is the story. We had camped the night before less than a mile from the start of the bushwhack so we would have time to get through it and then crush out a few more miles before dark. We expected a low mileage day after talking to some hikers who had just gone East bound through the bushwhack, but we never expected to only hit a total of 7 miles for the day. The “official start” to the bushwhack was marked on trail by a small rock cairn, but there wasn’t a visible trail to get to the cairn. We scrambled up steep slats of boulders that formed the side of the mountain, following the path on the map as best we could. I tend to lead a very safe life, so for me, this was difficult. Would I do this for fun on just a regular day hike? Perhaps…. but definitely not with a 20 pound pack on my back. I had no choice in this situation so scramble I did. We reached the rock cairn in a brief-ish amount of time, took a break for a snack and some water, and then headed down the other side of the mountain through the shoulder high shrubs. There was a visible trail for about 50 feet and we thought the bushwhack would be a breeze. Then the trail disappeared. How is that possible? We were just on it… but it was gone. And there was no sign of anyone or anything having been on the “trail” recently. Every blade of grass and plant was standing upright, untouched. We spent a few hours looking down at the map then up into the shrubbery searching for a trail that didn’t exist, then all of a sudden it did for a few steps, but was gone just as quick as we’d found it. With 2.5 miles left in the bushwhack, we stopped to eat lunch. We were hungry but mostly just needed a break. After lunch we trekked on and covered one more mile before we needed another break. We were starting to lose daylight but had to regroup our brains. We figured that this close to the end there had to be some sort trail, but where was it? We’d flip flopped across the river all day long and after we’d started whacking again after our last break, we saw a stack of rocks on the other side of the river. We agreed the stack didn’t look natural and must be human made, so once again, across the river we went. When we got there though, the brush and trees were thicker than they’d been in all day. Our feet weren’t even touching the ground as we grabbed branches to pull ourselves across shrub roots desperate to see a trail. Realizing we needed to get back to the other side of the river, we headed to the shore. We popped out of the shrubs on a spot at the river that was uncrossable if we didn’t want submerge ourselves to knee/hip level. I’ve never felt so helpless before. The only option was to keep searching but that seemed hopeless. Wes started climbing a large boulder to try and see further up and down the river to find a crossable spot. His foot slipped on the way up and down he fell, backwards five feet or so into the river completely submerging his pack and slamming his lower back on a rock. “This is it,” I thought, “Wes is knocked out and we are lost.” Luckily, he popped up in a matter of seconds, chased his floating hat for a few feet, then grabbed my hand to help pull him out of the river. The sun was going down, the air was getting cold, Wes was soaked, and we still had a mile left. About 20 feet up the river, we found a spot to cross and miraculously, there was the trail. We didn’t lose it again until we hit an unmarked camp spot. We contemplated just staying there, but wanted to be as far away from that bushwhack as possible and wanted to give ourselves a sure fire start in the morning by finding the real trail. If we never saw a tree, shrub, or weed again, that’d be fine with us. We crossed a little stream that was formed by some beautiful natural water slides where the map told us to go and… you guessed it…. no trail. It was .7 miles to the campsite we wanted to get to and we were once again lost and even more brain dead than before. We finally found ourselves at the campsite by following trees marked with pink flags. Whether or not that was their purpose, we didn’t care. We got where we wanted to be. It was a beautiful campsite hidden amongst huge, dense trees, but we chose to sleep on the hard dirt ground nowhere near the trees. Nature had not been good to us that day. Our legs were shredded and so were our spirits. We slept hard that night and woke to a new day. The worst was over, so we packed up and got moving, hoping to cover 25+ miles to help make up for time lost in the bushwhack. We’d only planned food for four days and were now a days worth of mileage behind. The hike started on a trail for about a mile that took us to a dirt road. According to our map, we were to turn right and see the trail continue a few meters up the road. We were led to a near vertical mountain side with no sign of a trail. Not even an hour into the day and we were already lost. We took a deep breath and decided to turn around and take the road the other direction. We weren’t on the trail according to our map, but made it to the trailhead. A few fours went by, no sweat. We had a 4 mile climb up a lookout mountain, ate lunch at the top, then headed down the other side. We were cruising along, happy to be covering some ground. The trial popped us out on another dirt road that showed the trail starting up again just on the other side of the road. We didn’t see a trail, so we walked down half a mile figuring we’d catch site of it at some point, but alas, we did not, and to top it all off, the road was taking us in the opposite direction we wanted to go. We turned around and searched for the trail for at least 2 hours. Once again, though, no site of the trail and we were running out of daylight not just because of the time of day, but because the smoke from surrounding fires was engulfing the sun before our eyes. We had to make a decision. I’d cried at least 4 times earlier that day and was once again weepy. “Im done,” I said, “I’m sorry.” Wes had had it, too. We sat for a few minutes in the middle of the road and made the decision to give up on the map and just start walking on the dirt road. It had to take us somewhere closer to civilization and that’s what we needed right now. I didn’t want to feel lost or stranded anymore. We are currently sitting in a hotel in Sandpoint, Idaho, far from the trail and figuring out what our next step is. Our adventure on the PNT might be done, but the adventure overall is not.

Going into the PNT, we knew it wasn’t a complete trail and some road walking and bushwhacking would be involved, but we did not expect it to be this extreme. We wanted to come out here together and enjoy walking to the ocean. That’s not what happened. There was more navigating than we expected and far more road walking. All we wanted was a trail and beautiful scenery. The trail wasn’t a “trail,” but the scenery couldn’t even make up for it because we couldn’t see anything through the thick smoke from the surrounding fires. We had come to a scenic trail and found neither scenery or trail. I admit I didn’t do my research to see what we were actually getting into. For experienced hikers who like a challenge and navigation, this is the trail for them. This was not a trail for me. I’m neither an experienced hiker or interested in tough navigation. Hiking to me has always been a way to clear my mind, not stress it out. Our plan as of now is to find a different, more complete trail to hike with our remaining time. We will do the research we need to and make sure we are 100% prepared. I will believe and follow the suggestions I read online. It’s funny how the official trail websites know what they’re talking about when it comes to having multiple navigation tools and being prepared for scrambles and non-trail portions…

As I said before, the adventure doesn’t end here! We had nothing short of an adventure on our 300 miles of the PNT, but it wasn’t the right adventure for us. If you’d like, follow along on our attempts to find the right adventure for us! More photos and stories of different trails to come!

The coolest part of the bushwhack.

My lonely backpack longing for the woods when all I wanted to do was sleep on the bats dirt.

Wes walking out of a wonderland.

The viewiest view we saw for days.