August 23, 2016 - Actually I hiked 12.5 miles today. The trail officially ends at the border but I still had to hike about another 8 miles to Manning Park.
I got up really late today, 7:30am. I did wake up in the middle of the night to pee and couldn’t go back to sleep for awhile, I was just too excited to finish my hike. Even when I woke up I took my time packing up since I didn’t have far to go, just 3.7 miles downhill to the border.
Those 3.7 miles took no time at all. Right before I got there I went down a switchback and got my first view of the monument, gave me this excitement feeling that I finally made it. I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to really celebrate until I actually got to the border even though for the last 400 miles people kept congratulating me on my thru-hike, I really didn’t like hearing that at least not until I actually finished.
At first I was all alone at the border, so many emotions going on, couldn’t believe I made from Mexico to Canada. So to celebrate I put my self timer on my camera and took a lot of pictures.
After about 45 minutes a few others started to show up so I could at least celebrate with others. Actually one of the other guys was from Tulsa as well.
I finished off the rest of my food and almost all my water so I basically had nothing in my pack and was off to Manning Park Resort.
The first 4 miles were uphill which wasn’t too bad but then flew down the rest of the way, going over 4 mph.
I got to Manning Park Resort and went straight to get some food. I ran into other hikers I’ve met before and had dinner with them. The resort is very hiker friendly as they allow 1 free shower and a drink to the thru-hikers along with giving access to the pool/hot tub. That hot tub felt so good, I didn’t want to get out. After the cleaning up I did laundry so I wouldn’t be smelly on the bus that I would be taking at 1:50am which gets me into Vancouver around 5:30am, then fly out to Tulsa at 3pm and get in around 11pm. Should be fun these next 24 hours.
