Angels in Haven . . . Hiker Haven
Both The Pacific Crest Trailside Readers and this website have included other stories about trail angels and trail magic. It is a wonderful and enchanting component of trail culture. But, being committed angels like the Dinsmores involves tremendous patience, generosity, and, of course, kindness. Thank you from all of us hikers!
For almost a decade, Andrea and Jerry Dinsmore have been hosting PCT hikers. About 250 hikers a year stay with them to do laundry, resupply, and get a good night's rest.
The first time Jerry Dinsmore saw a group of ragged young people in Skykomish shortly after he moved back to the area in 2003, he thought they were bums.
But when a couple of them asked him where to find a grocery store, Dinsmore gave them a ride to the Gold Bar Market. When he found out they planned to sleep outside, he brought them home.
"He brought four people home and they were dirty and stinky and I ran around and hid my jewelry and my wallet and keys," said his wife Andrea at the couple's manicured 2 1/2 acre Baring property last week. "Then we sat around the fire and three were attorneys and one was a doctor. We changed our opinion really fast."
These scruffy people became the first of hundreds of hikers to stay at the home of the Dinsmores, who have become legendary as "trail angels," the only such volunteers to host the hikers in the entire state of Washington.
On a recent afternoon, it was a haven for about a dozen hikers, including a father-son team calling themselves "Chili" and "Pepper," an English couple called "Peregrino" and "Ripple," and many others resting in tents on the lawn, in a small gazebo under the massive old firs, swinging in a hammock, or in the armchairs circled in a small bunkhouse.
Chili addressed his "bounce-box," exchanging things like ice-axes for new shoes, and arranged for FedEx to pick it up at the Dinsmores' home to deliver it to their next supply spot on the trail. Other hikers sorted through supply boxes they had sent to the Dinsmores' house to pick up when they arrived, carrying dehydrated foods and other necessities.
As they arrived, many hitchhiking down from Stevens Pass, the Dinsmores guided them to the colorful bunkhouse with its Tibetan prayer flags and commemorative T-shirts and bandanas from previous hiking seasons hanging from the rafters and showed them where they could do laundry and take a shower.
The services the Dinsmores provide to about 250 hikers a year, entirely free of charge, are startling in their number. Each day, they run to the Skykomish Post Office, where they've been picking up their own mail since they first moved to Timberlane in 2003. But in addition to their own mail, they pick up a dozen or more supply boxes for hikers expecting to arrive.
They bring the mail back to their "mail room" and sort it into long rows, all indexed in a system Jerry developed that helps him find packages as needed.
If hikers need a ride up to the trail, the Dinsmores take them along. And while they don't go pick up hikers as a general rule, in wet weather, or cold weather, or in the dark, or if someone is arriving at the pass with an injury, they'll jump in the car and go fetch the travelers.
They offer a computer for emailing and blog-posting, a washer and dryer, a hot shower. They don't typically cook, but if it's late, or if folks are particularly hungry and the store is closed, or if they feel like it, they'll grill up hamburgers or hot dogs.
"They are easy to please," Jerry said with his customary chuckle. "They rave about my burgers and they are just regular old burgers."
And if a hiker gets in in the early evening, Jerry will call Nancy or Steve over at the Baring Store and wheedle them into opening the store for a few minutes, or keeping the restaurant going an extra hour while Jerry exchanges salty banter with Nancy and hikers order two or three meals at a sitting.
They might shuttle a few hikers around, taking them up to the Cascadia in Skykomish for burgers, or over to the ATM for cash. They keep immigration forms around for people who might not be prepared for the border crossing nine miles before the end of the trail.
And as the season draws to a close and snows begin in the passes, the Dinsmores will ask hikers to call once they reach the next town, about four days away by trail. If they don't hear in a reasonable amount of time, they call Search and Rescue.
"What do you do?" Jerry said. "If they are hurt and you don't send out Search and Rescue, you feel bad. The Search and Rescue guys said it's okay, it's good training and they are all raring to do something anyway."
The Dinsmores aren't made of money, and though hikers often leave donations, it still costs them about $2,500 out of pocket each year to host all their visitors.
It's worth it, though, to be "Mom and Dad" to the many people finishing that last 192 miles to the trail's end in Manning Park, British Columbia, they said.
"It keeps up busy," said Andrea. "It keeps our minds and hearts young. This is our retirement."
They meet a lot of interesting people, including one family hiking with a child of 7, and a trail runner running the entire trail at the age of 79. Once, Jerry sat around the campfire that burns most nights, watching a man he knew to be virtually penniless chat with another he knew to be a multi-millionaire.
"I love the people," said Jerry. In his professional life, he noticed people behaving jealously of one another, he said, running one another down to make themselves look better. But hikers, he said, are noncompetitive, easy going, happy to share stories and hear the stories of others. And the Dinsmores know their hospitality is greatly appreciated.
"Trail angels are amazing," said the British Pelegrino, who was airing out the contents of her pack in the bunkhouse after arriving the day before. "It's amazing what they do," added her hiking partner Ripple. "You do feel you want to put something back into it."
There have been many books written by those who have hiked the trail, and virtually all of them contain some story of the Dinsmores. One such author who hiked under the name Skywalker tells an account of a warning issued by the "doughty lady named Andrea Dinsmore and her cigar-chomping husband Jerry" that dissuaded him and several others from attempting the last stretch of mountain pass in October snowstorms.
And a plastic mail bin is four inches deep in letters, postcards, christmas cards and photographs sent to them by those who have passed through.
"Eric and I arrived at Stevens Pass cold, wet and discouraged from hiking in the rain," wrote a hiker named Bob from Oregon. "You came and gave us a ride to your home in Skykomish. You fed us, provided lodging, we did our laundry, took showers and you provided an evening of conversation with other Pacific Crest Trail hikers…Without your support, we may have stopped hiking at Stevens Pass."
And in an excellent example of scruffy people turning out to have prestigious day jobs, Bob's hiking partner sent a letter, too.
Eric wrote a letter to the Pacific Crest Trail Association, pledging to pay for memberships for the Dinsmores on an ongoing basis. The letter was written on Circuit Court of Oregon stationary, where his signature revealed that he was a senior judge.
But no matter how rich or poor, the hikers are all family to the Dinsmores. "Once they contact us, they kind of become our kids," said Andrea.
