A wet and muddy last hurrah

I was a little unsure about this one! The weather was rainy for a few weeks, and the weather was staying a bit cold. But I knew I could handle cold weather from the last hike, so I thought I could handle this one okay. So after making sure it wasn’t going to rain heavily, I set off for one more hike!

This one was even farther away than last time, about 1 hour and 30 minutes away!

This path started right on the highway, so it was an easy start!

This river at the beginning of the trail was quite swollen because of the rain recently. I knew that tomorrow I would have a river crossing that could be very difficult. The trail’s website says that it becomes dangerous after a heavy rain, so I was worried about it before the hike even started! Until then, I wanted to make sure my feet stayed dry.

This marshy area was very cold and foggy, but I could keep my feet mostly dry. The wet branches made my shirt and shorts wet pretty quickly, though.

Soon, I came to a small stream. It was also swollen because of the rain, but I saw a way I thought I could go to hop from rock to rock and stay dry!

I took one step towards the first big rock, and…

A part that looked like firm ground was actually soft mud, so both feet sank completely into the wet, cold mud. I was hardly 1 hour into my hike, and already my feet were completely soaked!!!

Oh well. After that, I continued my hike, and there were a few points that I sank into surprise mud again! But at least I didn’t have to worry about staying dry anymore…

The trail was in tough condition, but the fall leaves were pretty!

I finally got to camp, and the plaforms were also in difficult condition. I found one that was mostly okay, and I set up camp.

I was tired, wet, and muddy, but glad I could finally relax! And just like last time, I was prepared with dry socks and warm pants!

After I got my tent set up, it was time for more MRE!

Poptarts are popular breakfast food, mostly for children, here in North America. Have you ever had one? I was surprised to see one in an MRE! The rest of it was similar to what I’ve already shown you, so I won’t post pictures of the same thing again.

It gets dark early nowadays, so it was already dark by 7 PM. I was tucked into my sleeping back, watching YouTube videos (I had reception on my smartphone, I was surprised!). Despite how cold it was, I actually got a good 6 or 7 hours of full sleep! Of course I was tired and sore in the morning, but I’m glad I could sleep in such cold, wet conditions.

When I woke up, I filtered some water from a nearby stream.

This was after filtering it… I had chlorine tablets, so I knew I could drink it safely, but I wasn’t excited to try the taste. (Thankfully, I never needed to use it, I brought enough water with me!)

After I packed up everything, I headed off! This first part was VERY difficult. Lots of uphill, and the trail was in very difficult shape.

After a few hours though, I got to a part that I was very excited to get to; a natural stone arch that the ocean had eroded away into a very unique shape!

Because this was a popular place for local people to come, the trail was in much better condition from here. It was still difficult, but not as much!

I was still very wet, and quite tired, but I knew the difficult river was coming soon. It didn’t rain the night before, but it was very wet weather for a week or so. I approached where the river was, ready to take off my boots and walk across freezing cold water, and…!

…oh…

I was very relieved that I didn’t have to walk across a rushing river! The rest of the trail was mostly unremarkable, and I was also tired as usual, so I don’t have so many pictures. But eventually, I came to a dirt road that led me to the town where my husband would pick me up!

Once I got into town, I found a nice little gazebo to sit in and wait for my husband, where a small community library had some books people could borrow for free. It was a cute idea!

And that was it! That’s the last of my overnight hikes for 2025! I might have a chance to go on one or two shorter hikes before winter comes, but now the weather is much too cold to stay overnight. It was a good year! I got a lot of progress done, and I didn’t have any major accidents like I did last year, so I was really happy with my progress. Here is what I’ve done so far:

I don’t think I’ve gon 68 km in total, that’s just to show the scale of the trails I’ve done. The little blue triangles are where I’ve camped as well. There are many gaps in the lower half, but I hope to connect them next year!

Thanks everyone for joining me on this year’s hiking blogs! Now I need to think of something interestng to post during the winter…