Northport, WA to Republic, WA
Section Overview
- Miles: 73.8
- Days: 3 (+ zero in Republic)
- Total Miles: 474.39
- Total Days: 23
Day 20
I left Jami and Josh’s house around 7:30 the next morning after thanking them for their hospitality. I stopped by the gas station on the way out of town to pick up some extra food I needed to reach the next town. The gas station resupply wasn’t the best, consisting mostly of Pop-Tarts, peanut butter, and candy, but it would be enough to get me through the next few days. I passed over the Columbia River and set my eyes back to climbing into the mountains.
Quickly after leaving Northport, I was back on a dirt road heading up into the mountains. As I walked along the dusty “trail,” I started to encounter more and more cattle grazing in the hot sun, their tails whipping away flies that seemed equally as interested in following me. As I weaved through the woods and clear cuts, I marveled at how quickly the PNT highlights came and went. Only a few days ago, I was scrambling over massive granite slabs, enjoying the fresh mountain air. Now I was dodging cows and trying not to inhale too much of the dust being kicked up by the wind and the cattle running away from me as I drew close.
The day past uneventfully. I quickly lost count of the number of cows I saw and began saying hi to them more frequently than I care to admit. The monotony of the forest service road was only broken up by a rancher in his pickup, presumably checking on his livestock, driving past me a couple times during the day. Thankfully Northport marked the end of grizzly bear country on the PNT, which meant I could ditch some gear, but also meant I was comfortable sticking headphones in and zoning out listening to podcasts to pass the time.
After hiking along the dusty road for most of the day, I popped out of the woods to be greeted by some farmhouses right next to the road. I moved past the houses quickly, not wanting to disturb anyone, only stopping to take a photo of a car being consumed by the land. I left the car to the grass and traded the dusty road under my feet for a gravel road continuing west towards the Kettle River.
While walking along the road, an animal caught my eye. It was sniffing the ground in the road up ahead of me and I couldn’t quite make out what it was. In the moment, I thought it was a fox, but after looking through my shaky camera footage, I’m fairly confident it was a coyote pup. The animal darted away as soon as it noticed me, leaving the road all to me. A mile or so later, I came across a local fire station, which, thanks to previous reports of the trail, was a good spot to fill up water. My next easily accessible water source wouldn’t be for some time, so I gratefully filled my three liter capacity and moved on.
After crossing the Kettle River, I was met with numerous Private Property signs, indicating I would need to climb back into the national forest before I could find a suitable spot to camp for the night. I trudged up the road into the Kettle River Range as the sun began dropping lower in the sky. The trees around me were thick enough to block much of the light I was used to having up high in the mountains, but as I came around a bend, the sun came into view, and I realized that smoke from some fire must have rolled in. The sun was an apocalyptic shade of red, hovering just about the tops of the trees. After marveling at the sun for a minute, I found a pullout off the road that offered a suitable amount of visual protection from the road and I ducked into the woods to set up camp for the night.
Day 21
The next morning I rejoined the road and continued my trek west. Soon, I ended an old burn zone from 2015 and not long after, the road became consumed by low fresh growth. Thankfully the blow downs were virtually gone, which kept the travel relatively easy.
About 12 miles after leaving camp, I reached a major road, which lead into Curlew, WA. As much as I would have enjoyed hitching into town, Republic was only a couple days in front of me and had a reputation for being an amazing trail town. Across the road was the Kettle Crest Trailhead, which held another trail register. The register included the PNT hiker I had seen in the register at Abercrombie Mountain as well as the two other hikers she had mentioned. To my surprise, they had signed the register just the day before.
I left the road behind and headed up on the Kettle Crest Trail. I was happy to be on a single track trail after hiking almost exclusively on pavement, dirt, and gravel roads since Upper Priest Lake. Immediately my mood sky rocketed as views of the Kettle Crest Range came into view. Even though I was fairly exposed burn zone, I was enjoying sliding through the lupine’s emerging in between the dead trees.
The trail continued to meander through the mountains, occasionally crossing other trails. I had grown used to using the less frequented trail, but it was still quite funny seeing the difference in some of the trails I crossed over.
Soon after spotting Copper Butte, I started to hear some voices in front of me. A few minutes later, two hikers came into view taking a break. They were the two PNT hikers (Carson and Tim) who had started the Kettle Crest Trail the day before! We talked for a bit before continuing on as a trio. Carson and Tim were two brothers from Michigan, who were fitting the PNT into their summer’s between school and other responsibilities.
We spent most of the rest of the day hiking together and talking about the trail so far. It was incredible having some other hikers to talk to for more than a few minutes and hearing about how different their experiences and route choices had been was exceptionally fun.
The rest of the day past quickly with other people to hike with and soon we were at the base of Copper Butte. I was heading into Republic the next day, so I wanted to get to the top of Copper Butte to have a few easy downhill miles to the road to hitch into town, but Carson and Tim were heading farther along to the southern access point to Republic. With this in mind, we parted ways and I climbed the remaining 1,000 feet up to the top of the butte.
The views from the summit of Copper Butte were incredible. I signed the summit register and explored some of the off artifacts that had made their way to the top over time.
I found a secluded spot just on the other side of the summit away from the black flies that had gleefully discovered my presence and laid out my camping gear. Looking at the map I had on my phone, I realized I had covered over 30 miles and nearly 9,000 feet of elevation over the course of the day.
Without a doubt, this was one of my best evenings so far on the PNT. Aside from a slight warm breeze, the summit was calm and quiet. A kestrel was hovering out in front of me looking for its evening meal and after failing to get a photo of it a few times, I enjoyed the watching it adjust its wings to stay perfectly in place on the wind. The sun slowly went down and soon I was falling asleep, thinking about the zero I was planning in Republic.
Day 22
The next morning, I woke up with the sun. I had about 11 miles to reach Sherman Pass where I would be hitchhiking into Republic. My girlfriend had decided to drive out to Republic from Seattle since I was spending an extra day in town, so I wanted to get in as early as I could to get chores done so I could relax the rest of the time.
Even with the desire to reach Republic early, I enjoyed the early morning in the alpine. The sun rose, revealing the valleys to the west filled with wildfire smoke. Soon, fields of flowers and the views were covered by trees as I descended towards the pass.
As I hiked South towards Sherman Pass, my left quad stared developing a sharp pain. I hadn’t experienced anything like it and my pace began to drop as I struggled to bend my left leg. It was frustrating feeling like I should be reaching town faster than I was, but I kept pushing, hoping it would fade. Unfortunately the pain persisted the whole stretch to Sherman Pass. But eventually I reached Sherman Pass and stepped onto State Route 20 for the first time, which I was fairly familiar with on the West side of Washington.
I walked a few hundred yards up to a wider pullout then where the trail had joined the road and stuck my thumb out to catch a ride. I had heard that the high into Republic was particularly challenging as all the roads that led in were relatively infrequently traveled. I had picked Sherman Pass as my point of reaching Republic because it was supposed to be the easiest of the three options. I quickly realized that “easiest” didn’t mean “easy.”
Cars came speeding by every 5-10 minutes, but paid me no mind. Perhaps if I had a sign or looked a bit cleaner I may have had more luck. Eventually after 90 minutes of trying, an old beat up pickup truck pulled over. Two dogs in the front seat leaped up against the window and started ferociously barking at me. I leaned down to see into the driver and explained I was heading into Republic. All he did was nod and gesture to the bed of his pickup.
Without much of a thought, I tossed my backpack in and hopped up into the pickup truck. I was leaned up against the short side of the truck, my feet extended toward the “tailgate,” which was just a loosely fitting piece of wood. Safety concerns and sawdust being kicked up into my face aside, I was happy to be headed to town.
The man dropped me off in the center of Republic with little more than a wave and I set to the first town chore. Food. I found a pizza shop and ordered out a large pizza and took it over to the Republic Brewing Company. I dropped my backpack and pizza off outside and went in to grab a beer. After a short line, I learned that another patron had already paid for my beer. As much as the difficulty of the hitch lived up to its reputation, the town of Republic was living up to its friendly reputation.
While hanging at the brewery, I ended up having multiple conversations with multiple different people who either knew about the trail and wanted to hear how it was going and ask questions about gear or people who were curious why other people were talking to me. One group of people even invited me to the house they were staying on north of Republic and to their house on the west side of the Cascades. So far Republic was awesome.
The rest of the day involved showering, meeting my girlfriend, and eating as much food as I could find.
Day 23 (Zero Day)
My zero in Republic was very needed and very relaxing. I spent the day eating anything I could get my hands on, actually cleaning my clothing at a laundromat, swimming in Lake Curlew, and generally enjoying my first true zero on the trail.
