Hey everyone!
Tala and I are back from finishing our thru-hike of the Pacific Northwest Trail and we had a great time. I've attached a few photos below and if you would like to see more then please swing on over and give my Facebook Page a "like."
For those who aren't familiar with it, the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) travels 1,200 miles from the continental divide to the Pacific Ocean and goes through seven wilderness areas and three national parks. Dogs are not allowed in the backcountry, so I wasn't able to bring Tala through them and fortunately some great people along the way watched her while I walked through the parks.
I started my journey at the Chief Mountain trailhead in Glacier National Park and headed west towards Polebridge Montana.
On my 2nd day in the park I had some serious trail stare going on and just happened to look up and see a fuzzy brown thing on the trail about 40 ft ahead of me. I didn't know what it was at first and thought it was a large rodent.
I followed what I later found out was his butt down and saw a face looking at me and had a 4 minute stand off with a big mountain lion. Fortunately I was able to get the entire thing on video. He started walking towards me so I yelled at him and banged my trekking poles together in order to scare him away. I think he had an absinth tooth or something because his left cheek was really swollen. I then made my way through Montana onwards to Idaho.
My favorite thing about Idaho were the alpine lakes along the way and they were very refreshing to swim in because the temperatures stayed steadily about 95f during the day and we hit 109f one day too.
Tala using a rock as a pillow when taking a snooze.
We later made it into the Pasaytan wilderness which was one of my favorite parts of the entire trail. We dodged forest fires for the first three days and then had constant rain for the last 3, but man was it a blast!
I went solo through North Cascades and Olympic National Park and although I loved North Cascades, Olympic was hands down my favorite!
I finished the hike when I made it to Cape Alava on the Pacific Ocean to much excitement.
This was an amazing adventure and I can't express how proud I am of Tala for doing so well. With the exception of the national parks, Tala is the first dog in the PNT's history to hike the entire trail.
I filmed hours of footage for this trip and I will have the documentary finished in the next year after I enter it in a few film festivals.
I'll have a gear list video up soon as well as some other fun things from the trip.
Thanks so much everyone for taking a look at my photos and for the constant support while I was on the trail. I appreciate ya.
Fronkey & Tala
Bookmarks