The hike from Northport to Orient was one of the easiest I ‘ve done on the PNT and yet it wasn’t easy for me. My feet were still hurting and I was trying to make big miles. I was pushing myself because I had a package at a store in Orient. I wanted to be there before 3PM on Friday when the store closed. Otherwise, I would have to wait until it reopened on Monday. That gave me a short two days to do the 30 mile dirt road walk.

I walked along a creek which Shelby had informed me was lovely for swimming. She was right and I enjoyed cooling off in the cold water.

The highlight of my walk was meeting Theresa, who is yet another bad ass woman. This 60-year-old is a Range Rider who spends her days in the wilderness monitoring and protecting both predators and cows. When I ask her what it was like to be a woman of her age doing this job, and if she had gotten hassled from men, she said she stopped being hassled when the men realized she could “outride and out shoot all of them.”

Yet even though she was tough, she was incredibly kind. She was concerned about me limping down the road. I had gotten blisters on the long paved road walk into Northport and my left foot was still hurting from twisting it in the horrible lionshead bushwhack. Theresa said the limping would send a signal to predators that I was an injured animal. Even though she had the toughness to stand up to the grizzlies and cougars, she wanted to make sure I was OK.

She told me how hard it was to be a rancher out here and I told her about the difficulty of small farmers on the East Coast. When we parted ways, I felt honored to have met her and realized that while people call me Mary Badass, I don’t feel anything like a bad ass compared to a lot of the women I’ve met out here in the Northwestern wilderness.

After many stops for my aching feet, I made it to Pierre Lake Campground. It was off the trail a bit but would give me easier access to Orient in the morning. And I didn’t mind going off the trail to camp near another beautiful lake.

While I was there I met three people who were car camping. They had come from Western Washington and invited me to their campsite to share dinner with them. I had just eaten my entire dinner but still had no trouble eating two bowls of stew with a big chunk of bread. And then I ate a huge sub roll stuffed with bear sausage. I topped it off with a number of cookies and a cold soda. I’ve been surprised at the amount of food I’ve started eating since the weather has cooled down.

Just before dark, I headed back to my campsite and crawled into my tent. I was grateful for all the people who I was meeting along the way and who were helping me overcome the funk I had gotten into on the PNT.

I enjoyed the walk along the lake in the morning and then the climb up and down into Orient where I did indeed arrive in time to pick up my package. The “Essentials” store in Orient is really the heart of the community. It is run by Seventh Day Adventist and staffed by volunteers. The prices in the store are some of the lowest I’ve seen in a long time, and the selection was sufficient for me to resupply. In addition, I was able to buy a few frozen meals at extremely reasonable prices. I heated them in their microwave and sat at the table in the front of the store and ate and ate. During that time, many people came in to use the showers or do laundry, both of which were in a room adjoining the merchandise part of the store. People came in and visited with each other. A number of community members made use of the wifi at the store. There was minimal cell reception in Orient and giving people access to the Internet was a gift to the locals in town.

One man from Texas who was camping with his family came in to take a shower. He bought me an ice cream while we talked. When the store closed, I went off to the house of a woman in town who had invited me to spend the night.