Happy Caturday!
For six months we’ve been going through the process of getting new cats: deciding what kinds of cats we preferred, choosing a breed that might not be so bad for those of us with mild cat allergies, finding a breeder, and picking kittens. Today’s the day we bring our two new kitties home.
We haven’t given the cats names yet, so we tell them apart by the color of their collar: one’s blue, one’s green. They’re both males. The green one meows all the way home from the cat breeder’s house in Puyallup.
To start things out, we set them up with new cat gear in our master bathroom. They explore every corner, and we have fun playing with them and some new cat toys.
The first night, the green one meows all night long. Thankfully, his little meows aren’t very loud yet.
Our friends the Frazers help us celebrate the Fourth of July by joining us for a barbeque dinner. Anya and Kaila spend the evening holed up in Anya’s room, while the adults linger over the dinner table. We break things up at 10:00 so the Frazers can go home.
Afterwards, we (minus Anya) walk down the street to one of the little pocket beaches so we can watch the fireworks display the tennis club puts on. The night is cloudy and a little cold, and there’s nobody out on the street. Maybe there’s not going to be a fireworks show? At least at the pocket beach, which was just recently cleared off huge blackberry bushes, we have a nice view up and down Lake Washington of some 10 or so other fireworks shows going on.
Finally, at around 10:15, when we’re thinking of heading back home, big fireworks shoot up over the tennis club. We have a great view, and have the little beach all to ourselves until the very end of the show. A group of young men show up to watch, and then light a firework of their own over the lake. It’s not bad, but compared to the big fireworks in the show, it’s tiny. Everyone laughs at how small it seems.
After a week of living with the kittens, we finally have family consensus on names for them: Moxie and Mojo.
Sabriya turns nine! She celebrates with a birthday party sleepover for friends Annabel, Annalisa, Emily, Haze, Leah, and Maxine.
While waiting for the final guest to arrive, the girls work on a sewing craft. When everyone’s present, Angela sets the girls off on a photo/poem treasure hunt around the neighborhood. The girls visit: the branches of our front yard magnolia, a neighbor’s chicken coop, a pocket beach, a Little Free Library, the climbing equipment at the playground, Madison Beach, and a rock sculpture. The clues lead them to the local ice cream parlor, where the now-tired kids rest and have ice cream.
One highlight of the party is our new kittens. The girls take frequent breaks to play with the kittens, who don’t seem too overwhelmed by the attention and shrieking.
Many of Bree’s gifts from family this year are Lego kits from their new Lego Elves series. Bree recently announced that she now prefers Lego Elves to her previous focus, Lego Friends, because the Lego Elves world includes a villain. It’s come to her attention that, as fun as the Lego Friends stories are, the problems the Lego Friends have to contend with are just not that difficult.
After all the girls make their own pizzas for dinner and decorating cupcakes, they watch Tomm Moore’s animated “Song of the Sea”. They theoretically settle in to go to bed, although it takes hours to finally get them to sleep.
Jan leaves home for his hike across Washington State on the Pacific Crest Trail. The Washington portion of the PCT is 505 miles (812 km) long, plus there will be a final 9 miles to hike in Canada.
Jan’s mom picks him up and they drive to Portland to pick up Jan’s brother Chris at the Portland Airport. Chris’ flight is delayed. While waiting, Jan and Lyn have dinner at a restaurant close to the airport, so Jan’s last dinner in civilization ends up being generic food at the Shilo Inn.
After Chris’ flight finally arrives, the three drive to Cascade Locks, a small town is on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. The PCT crosses the river there on a grandiloquently-named Bridge of the Gods. The three spend the night at the Best Western hotel just next to the bridge.
Jan’s Washington Pacific Crest Trail hike, Day 1. Chris, Mom, and I have an early breakfast, and are ready to leave the hotel around 9:00 am. The hotel is right next to the Pacific Crest Trail, making it one of the very rare occasions when you can get to a trailhead just by walking out of a building and across a parking lot. It feels like we’re somehow missing a step, so to speak.
We walk out onto the Bridge of the Gods. There’s a toll booth, and even pedestrians have to pay a 50 cent toll. As it turns out, PCT hikers are exempt! Mom pays her fare so she can walk across the bridge with us.
Just walking over the bridge is pretty exciting: it’s very high over the Columbia River; you can see through the bridge deck to the river far below; there’s no walkway for pedestrians, so oncoming cars pass very close; when cars do pass, the noise is loud. From the bridge, we see an osprey floating over the river looking for fish. [Later, I’ll tell hikers walking southbound across Washington that I envy them — the Bridge of the Gods makes for a much more spectacular milestone than the monument on the Canadian border!]
We cross the bridge into Washington and Chris and I say goodbye to Mom. Chris and I walk down the road a short ways to an absolutely giant PCT sign marking where the trail leaves the road and enters a forest.
The hiking starts out fairly easy as the trail parallels the river, then the trail turns north and begins to climb. We’ve got nice weather for our first day: it’s sunny, not too hot. Around lunchtime, we come to a small creek and stop to have lunch. While sitting, another hiker comes by heading north. His trail name is Tracks, and he’s also hiking the Washington PCT, and also started today. Tracks can be easily recognized by the fact that he’s got a silver umbrella (for both sun and rain) and is wearing a leather skirt/kilt.
The PCT is exhaustively documented, and our trail data says this creek is the last water source for 11 miles. After we’ve finished eating, we fill our collapsible water bottles so that we’ll have enough water at our intended “dry” campsite to make dinner and breakfast. The water is good to have, but heavy.
The trail begins a long, perfectly steady climb that continues for much of the afternoon. We eventually pass a northbound Israeli hiker who gives his name as “H”. [I later this is short for Hanoch.] Hanoch is also hiking across Washington, although perhaps only as far as Stevens Pass. He also started today. I hadn’t realized walking across Washington was such a thing.
At one point we pass an extremely well-groomed portion of the trail, and eventually catch up with the trail crew that has just been working on it. They stop to let us pass, and we thank them for their work.
My goal for the first two weeks of this trip are to average 15 miles today. At this point, that pace is challenging, especially doing it day after day. But at a respectable walking pace of roughly 2.5 miles/hour, it will take us only 6 hours of hiking each day, giving us plenty of time to relax.
We finally arrive at PCT mile marker 2159, a small campsite at the top of a ridge near Three Corners Peak. The site sits at the edge of an old clearcut section of forest. As we each set up our one-person tents, we notice that the ridge affords us a nice view. To the south, in Oregon, we can see Mount Hood. As some clouds clear, we get a view of Mount Adams to the northeast, and then later Mount St. Helens to the northwest, and finally Mount Rainier far to the north. Giant mountains everywhere!
I point out to Chris that the PCT goes over the shoulder of Mount Adams, so I’m going to be walking to that mountain. Then it hits me that I’m eventually going to be walking past Mount Rainier, which on the horizon seems impossibly far away.
Miles hiked today: 15
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 2. I never get a great night’s sleep when hiking. My air mattress is reasonably comfortable, but it’s narrow, noisy, and doesn’t feel like a regular mattress. I always end up having to roll over every half hour or so, and every time I wake up a bit. At least I can always manage to go back to sleep.
It drizzled a bit overnight, and we’re either in fog or in a cloud. It takes a while to have breakfast and pack up. I find it usually takes close to 2 hours, and today’s no exception. So having woken up at 7:00, Chris and I are getting back on the trail at 9:00.
After hiking for a bit, we finally come upon a stream that breaks the waterless stretch we’ve been hiking through, so we fill up. Both Chris and I use a type of water filter that screws on top of a water bottle and filters water as we drink it, so we can quickly fill our bottles with water from the stream and keep going.
At one point we find a bit of a puzzle: someone has left a tent ground cloth and rain fly by the side of the trail. Why would someone do that? Those seem like pretty essential items. We conjecture that someone had these pieces of gear strapped to the outside of the pack, and the gear fell off. That’s pretty common. The question is what to do about it. We guess the person is most likely hiking northbound, and decide to take the ground cloth and rain fly with us in case we can catch up to them. [Later I’ll discover that, at this time of the year, there at least as many people hiking southbound as northbound, so our assumption was incorrect.] If we don’t meet the gear’s owner by the end of the day, we’ll leave the gear at a trailhead for someone with a car to take out of the wilderness.
We meet a couple of “SoBo” (southbound) thru-hikers: people trying to hike the entire PCT in one go. They started near the Canadian border weeks ago, in mid-June, when the weather was terrible. They had plenty of rain for the first few weeks, and were also stopped by snow at some points. When we tell them we’re going to resupply at Trout Lake, WA, the woman recommends that we visit the town’s cafe and get the Mt. Adams Burger and a huckleberry milkshake. We will spend the next 5 days thinking about this burger and milkshake.
After hiking up and down for the afternoon, we suddenly come out at an open spot, a high cliff over Trout Creek. The trail eventually makes its way down to the creek, and a creekside campsite where we plan to stop for the night. Hanoch, the hiker we met yesterday, is there. He just arrived, and is about to set up his tent in the larger of the site’s two tent spots, but he graciously yields the spot to the two of us and sets up his tent in the smaller spot.
Chris makes a campfire and the three of us talk over dinner. Chris quizzes Hanoch on a potential name for a new humangear product to see what Hanoch thinks. Hanoch discovers that he’s somehow lost his spoon — his only eating utensil, so an inconvenient loss. We share our utensils with him. He tries to think of what he can offer in return, but since most hikers are self-sufficient and carry similar things, it’s a bit hard for him to think of how to reciprocate. Eventually he offers us some of his mashed potatoes, which aren’t too bad. We trade back some of our dessert.
When I hang our bear bag to keep food away from bears and other critters, Hanoch explains that he doesn’t do that. He just keeps his food in a (theoretically) airtight bag that he uses for a pillow. This strikes Chris and me as slightly risky behavior, and it runs counter to the recommendation of the wilderness rangers. [Nevertheless, I will discover later that many, many thru-hikers do the same thing.] Chris and I always hang our food, although it can admittedly be a hassle to find a suitable tree branch and get a line over it. In this case, since we’re camped by a river with a high bridge, I just hang the food from the bridge. It will only be vulnerable to bears on inflatable rafts.
Miles hiked today: 15
Total: 30
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 3. We start our morning with easy hiking across the level floor of a wide valley. We cross two pretty rivers on a wooden bridge and then a metal bridge, then a long climb begins. The trail finally approaches the top just around lunchtime. We decide to scramble up a bit above the trail to the top of a ridge so we can have a nice view while we eat. The weather’s been cool for the past day and a half, but as we sit in the sun, we get warm.
As we’re eating, we see a woman struggling up the trail under a heavy load. We see something white sticking out over the top of her pack. As she slowly hikes up the trail below us, we begin to see that she’s carrying what looks like a white, full-sized cello case. She’s staggering along, bent over, but we can’t quite imagine someone hiking with an actual cello.
After finishing lunch, we soon catch up to the woman, who has stopped to take a rest. Her name is Ruth, but she goes by the trail name “Cello Lady”, for obvious reasons. She is, in fact, carrying a real, full-sized cello that weighs something like 25 lbs. She section-hiked the Appalachian Trail (that is, hiked the entire trail, but did it in sections) with the cello. She says that she finds playing outdoors inspiring, and is trying to start a group of musicians that play outdoors. We ask whether’s she been able to find, say, a violin player — that should be easy, yes? But she says she’s had no takers. Sadly, Ruth says that yesterday she took a tumble and broke some of her cello strings. Now she has no more spares. Losing another string would turn the quixotic exercise of carrying a trail in the wilderness into something truly pointless. We’d love to hear her play, but given how slowly she’s going, it’s pretty clear we’ll never see her again.
We reach our target campsite in the afternoon: an open dirt area at the top of a saddle. It’s not that interesting, though, so we decide to press on for another 2.5 miles to campsite by a spring at PCT mile marker 2191. It’s nice to have water nearby, and I take a very cold splash bath by the spring. Our extra hiking today will also make tomorrow’s hike shorter so we can have more time at Blue Lake. Hanoch joins us again, and Chris makes another campfire. He and I enjoy some s’mores for dessert.
We’re going to bed fairly early, around “hiker midnight”: 9:00 pm. As we go to bed, we can hear a bird that sounds like a coach’s whistle. We hear the bird (or maybe two birds?) whistle the same two chords over and over.
Miles hiked today: 16.5
Total: 46
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 4. One hiker refers to the beginning of a day on the trail as the “morning happies”: you’re rested, fed, have recovered a bit from the previous day’s hiking, and haven’t yet been exhausted by the current day’s hiking. Our morning happies today include easy hiking through the forest.
Eventually, the trail begins to climb again. Looking south from a ridge, the weather is so clear that we can not only see Mt. Hood in Oregon, we can see a second snow-covered mountain further to the south: Mt. Jefferson?
As the trail crosses to the north side of a hill, we can also see views of Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Adams. Just barely visible to the south, we can still see the Three Corners Peak near where we camped on the first day. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. We scramble up to a small summit for lunch, but there are bugs, so we eat quickly.
We enter Indian Heaven Wilderness, the first official wilderness area I’ll pass through on this hike. We reach Blue Lake in the early afternoon. I camped near here with Liya last year, so we’ve now reached the first of several points on the PCT I’ve hiked before.
We walk all the way around to the west end of the lake trying to find the best spot. The lake is very popular, and usually crowded, but we’re here in the middle of the week, and get the west end of the lake to ourselves. There are lots of mosquitos, so out come the bug nets. Filling up our water bottles, I notice there are some little red things swimming in the water: bug larvae, maybe? Yum.
We have most of the afternoon to relax. I rinse off at the edge of the cold lake, but Chris braves the cold and submerges himself. Then hollers. I have a nap, a cup of tea, and then read on a rock shelf at the lake’s east end. After dinner, there’s another campfire, and we toast the last of the marshmallows.
Miles hiked today: 12
Total: 58
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 5. The trail’s now on a wide plateau, so for the rest of this section, we’ll have easy hiking. In the middle of the morning, we reach Junction Lake, where Liya hid a geocache message last year for me to retrieve this year. I follow the designated stream to a stand of trees, then look in a hole at the base of one tree to retrieve the message. Liya’s letter is funny, and it’s wonderful to get a letter from her in the middle of the wilderness.
We spend hours following an endless ribbon of rolling trail through green forest, and the trail becomes a little monotonous. This monotony is broken by a patch of last winter’s snow: the first snow we’ve encountered on the trail. After crossing a dirt road, we have lunch in a meadow. Both Chris and I now have very sore feet and stiff muscles, so sitting down and getting up have become a chore.
After lunch, we accidentally hike past our destination campsite. We don’t discover this until we’ve got about 2 miles past it, and we don’t want to hike back. There aren’t any sites further up the trail for a while, so we decide to take a side trail to Steamboat Lake. This turns out to be a good decision. The lake’s first campsite is just okay, but the second site is amazing: it’s huge, nice trees, plenty of flat pitches for tents, a fire pit with nice cut log sections to sit on, it’s right next to the lake, has actual stairs down to the lake to get water, and has a view of Steamboat Mountain to boot.
The lake is only cold, not freezing, so we both go for a swim. Chris actually swims most of the way down the lake to check out a campground at the north end. We hear some voices from the south end of the lake in the mid-afternoon, but we have the lake to ourselves for evening. Chris produces some Belgian chocolate from his backpack as a surprise dessert for our last night together on the trail.
Miles today: 16
Total: 74
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 6. Today is the last day of this section of the trail. It’s a relatively easy 7 miles to a point where the PCT crosses National Forest Road 23. A short distance from the trailhead, we meet our mom walking up the trail to meet us. She’s got snacks and drinks in the car, and we enjoy them on the short drive to the nearby town of Trout Lake, WA.
We stop at the town’s cafe, which has an outdoor picnic area filled with the smell of meat being grilled. Following the recommendation of the thru-hikers we met on our first day, Chris and I each order a Mt. Adams Burger and a huckleberry milkshake. After ordering, I excuse myself to use the bathroom, and then come out to tell Chris: “They have hot water in the bathroom! It feels amazing!” The burger is huge but good, and the thick shake is a welcome change from filtered lake water.
We’re spending the night in town at a rustic ranch cabin arranged through AirBnB. The cabin has a wonderful front porch that faces the road across a wide lawn. As Mom and I sit out on the porch, a bicyclist comes by and stops to chat. In all the years she’s lived in Trout Lake, she’s never seen anyone sit out on the porch. (From photos and other things in the cabin, it sounds like it stopped being an active ranch in the 1970s.)
My plan is to take a shower and nap, but I’m so tired that this plan changes into a nap and shower. Afterwards I wash my all backpacking clothes while wearing my rain gear. I air out my tent, sleeping quilt, and everything else.
We have dinner at the town’s other restaurant, the Trout Lake Inn. Back at the cabin, I’m moving around the kitchen to restock my pack with food from my resupply box, and manage to somehow tweak a muscle in my back. Drat, that doesn’t bode well for the next section of the hike.
Before saying goodnight, Chris produces a small gift. He was hard-pressed to think of something light and useful enough that I could justify taking it on the hike. He managed to find a 3D model for an interesting emergency whistle, and printed that out on his company’s 3D printer. I’ve already got an emergency whistle, so we put the two whistles to the test. We go outside and I take turns blowing on the two whistles while Chris and Mom try to indicate which one sounds louder. The final verdict: the 3D-printed whistle is slightly louder, so I take that one.
Miles today: 7.5
Total: 82
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 7. Although it feels wonderful to lie down on a real bed, I don’t get a very good night’s sleep. That could either have been the result of drinking coffee too late in the day yesterday, or anxiety about starting the next section of the trail. From this point on, I’ll be hiking solo. I’m also somewhat worried about the weather report, which calls for rain for the next two days.
Chris, Mom, and I hang out for a bit on the cabin’s wonderful porch, then I pack up. We have a late breakfast at the cafe, then drive to the trailhead. It’s around 11:30 am. A large group of young hikers is sitting around waiting for someone to come bring them their resupply boxes from Trout Lake. My lower back, which I’d somehow tweaked yesterday, is feeling out of sorts. Chris gives me some of the medication he takes for neck/back pain, which will be nice to have — I don’t think sleeping on the ground is liable to help my back feel better.
I wave goodbye, then set off. The hiking isn’t too difficult: a modest climb through a burned-out portion of forest. It’s cloudy with some sunbreaks. I don’t plan to hike that far today, and stop in the middle of the afternoon at a lake called Sheep Lake on a shoulder of Mt. Adams.
As I’m setting up the tent, I hear the rumbling of thunder, and soon drops begin to fall. I have just barely time to finish pegging out the tent lines and to dive into the tent before the rain comes pouring down. There’s plenty of flashing lightning and booming thunder, not too far away, and the booms echo over and over in the mountain valleys.
A short while later, I hear two guys come by and ask if they can join me at the site, and I shout “Sure!” through the tent. I hear them hastily set up their tent’s rain fly and get under it. They eventually manage to set up the actual tent under the rain fly and get into the tent without getting wet. The two of them begin playing some card game. We all wait out the storm.
Eventually, the rain abates, and we all emerge from our tents to say hello. The two are Yoshi and Bevin, two friends from Boston who are hiking the Washington PCT up to Stevens Pass. Two other people I’ve passed, Matt and Peter, come up and hang out for a while. During the storm, Matt apparently sat just a few hundred yards from a lightning strike.
Now that the rain is gone, the bugs come back out. After dinner, the sky clears, and around the corner from our site we have great views of the top of Mt. Adams.
Miles today: 10
Total: 92
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 8. My back feels better this morning, mostly thanks to the back meds Chris gave me at the trailhead. My sitemates Yoshi and Bevin get up around the same time as I do, but they manage to leave a little before me.
As I’m putting on my pack, it starts to rain again. At least all my gear is nice and dry inside my waterproof pack. I put on my rain gear, which includes an ultralight rain jacket and a “rain kilt”: a black waterproof skirt that Angela says looks just like a garbage bag. These do a reasonable job keeping most of me dry, but my shoes and socks quickly get soaked.
I eventually catch up with and pass Yoshi and Beven, then later pass Peter as well. I have lunch by a creek in the dripping woods. Even when it’s not actually raining, under the trees there’s a nearly steady drip of water from overhead. I stop at one point to drink from a famed lava spring, but since I’m filtering my water, it doesn’t take particularly special.
My path today takes me down from Mt. Adams and across a monotonous stretch of forest into Goat Rocks Wilderness. I’ve heard Goat Rocks is quite beautiful, but this portion of it is nothing special.
Finding a spot to camp for the night turns out to be frustrating. When I reach the point of my intended campsite, I can’t find the site. I press on to the next site, a lake, but the “lake” turns out to be a stagnant pond covered with mosquitos. I start to set up tent, but am immediately covered with bugs. It’s obvious that the site, while it has a nice view of the pond, is going to be miserable with bugs. I pack up and keep going for another 2.5 miles to reach an uninteresting spot of ground in the gloomy, dripping forest. The only thing to recommend this site is that it’s mostly flat.
Thankfully, there’s another hiker camping there for the night. The hiker, a young woman with the trail name of “Scratch”, is a southbound thru-hiker who’s already under her tiny little tarp, finishing the remains of her cold dinner. (Many hikers skip a stove to save weight.) She’s doing big miles, 25 or more a day. We chat for a bit, but before I start making my dinner, she’s already fallen asleep.
Miles today: 19
Total: 111
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 9. “Scratch”, the thru-hiker with whom I shared the campsite, is up at sunrise, and long gone before I even get out of my tent. The forest is still dripping. In order to preserve my one dry pair of socks, I put yesterday’s cold, damp socks back on, then slip back into my cold, damp shoes. This is a horrible sensation.
This morning’s hiking isn’t too hard, but the trail passes through dense bushes still coated in water. Walking through these is like walking through a carwash — I end up just as soaked as if it were raining.
In the middle of the morning, the sun comes out for the first time in two days. Suddenly everything looks cheerful again! I make a long trek across a flat valley, then start to gradually climb along the ridge of a basin. I have lunch on a large log looking out over the basin. As I climb up, the peaks of Goat Rocks come into view, and the higher I climb, the more spectacular they look.
I’m gradually climbing up toward a peak called Old Snowy Mountain. Tomorrow I’ll have to cross some snowfields on it, and I’ve heard from some hikers that they’re a little steep. I meet a pair of older southbound section hikers who confirm this. They came over the snowfields yesterday in the fog, and when they crossed the largest snowfields, the fog was so thick they couldn’t see from one side of the snowfield to the other. They found that experience unsettling, as did other hikers. One hiker with the trail name, “Marty McFly”, had been deeply agitated, and shared the premonition that he was about to die. His words did nothing to make these two hikers feel better.
I eventually reach and cross over Cispus Pass, dropping into a stunningly beautiful high alpine valley full of roaring waterfalls. I reach my goal for the day, a small campsite at mile marker 2270, and find two hikers already there taking a tea break. One says hello. I don’t recognize him right away, but it’s Hanoch, the hiker Chris and I met several times in the last section. He’s teamed up with another hiker from Israel, a woman named Alice. She hikes slowly, but they didn’t take a break at Trout Lake like I did, so they had gotten ahead of me. Alice shares some herbal tea with me, which is a nice change of pace from the black tea I’ve brought.
Hanoch and Alice continue hiking, but this site has such a beautiful view of the valley that I’m happy to spend the night here on my own. I have a freezing cold rinse below the falls of the Cispus River, then relax for the rest of the afternoon. During dinner, I’m visited by a chipmunk who keeps trying to get close enough to steal food from me.
Miles today: 15
Total: 126
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 10. It’s a beautiful morning in this high alpine valley, and the weather is supposed to stay nice for the next few days. I’m on the trail by 8:30, and begin a slow climb up the west side of Old Snowy Mountain. I pass a southbound hiker who warns about the snowfields. He says that, going northbound, the third and last big snowfield will be the steepest. Since I don’t have any crampons, micro-spikes, or an ice axe, he recommends waiting until the sun’s softened up the snow before trying to cross it.
I eventually pass Hanoch and Alice, then pass two women who chat for a while. We talk about other hikers we’ve met, and they mention say they ran into a guy with an umbrella and a leather kilt. That would be “Tracks”, the section hiker I met on the very first day of my hike. He’s now a day or two ahead of me.
The two women mention that they’re hiking with a third woman who’s further up the trail, and I eventually catch up with her while traversing a snowfield. It’s a big snowfield, but I can’t decide whether this is one of the three the earlier hiker mentioned. It’s not too steep, and not too frightening.
The woman and I reach a crest in the trail. I see a trail head to the left along the edge of a steep cliff, and am panicked that I’m going to have to hike along it, then realize that the PCT actually goes to the right. That’s better, but I can see that the PCT crosses some more big snowfields. There’s also an alternate trail to the PCT that goes over the mountain’s summit. The alternate avoids snow, but includes sections of very loose rock/dirt composite that sound almost as tricky.
I’m not sure if I’ve now come to the first snowfield the earlier hiker mentioned, or the second. Stepping out onto the snow, it’s obvious the slope is steeper, but it’s still okay. I just have to walk very carefully, taking care to move only one foot or pole at a time, and to plant my foot/pole solidly each time.
After that there’s another snowfield, steeper yet: the third snowfield? This one is steep enough that a fall would be trouble — if I were to fall, I’d slide a long way. I’m relieved when I reach the other side. Then I go a bit further and discover another big snowfield, steeper than all the rest. So apparently the flat-ish first one I crossed wasn’t even worthy of the earlier hiker’s consideration, and I still have one more snowfield to go.
The third snowfield looks quite steep. It’s the top of the Packwood Glacier, and a fall would mean either sliding into rocks on the glacier’s sides, or else sliding for a very long time and a long way down the glacier. I try not to look down, and take extra care going across. This would feel a lot safer with someone else around. When I reach the other side, I’m very happy to be finally past this part of the trail.
The next part of the trail goes along a sharp ridge ominously named, “The Knife’s Edge”. While there are big drop-offs on either side of the trail, they’re not so steep or dangerous. I meet two southbound hikers. The first points out that there is a herd of mountain goats sitting on the glacier far below us, which is really fun to see. The second hiker introduces himself as “Marty McFly”: the same hiker whose doom and gloom had spooked the two people I met yesterday. I have lunch on a peak with a 360° view of Old Snowy Mountain, Goat Rocks, and Mt. Rainier.
Although I didn’t cover much distance in the morning, I’m drained by 3:00 pm and ready to stop. While trying to figure out how much farther to hike, I notice a pair of blue jeans folded up by the side of the trail around PCT mile mark 2280. I notice the jeans are next to a small spur trail, and see that the trail goes up to a rise overlooking the PCT. It looks like the sort of place where someone might put a campsite, so I walk up the spur trail and indeed find a nice spot to camp.
I set up camp and take a nap. I’m woken up by the sounds of horses. A small group of old men on horseback are riding on a small trail that goes straight through my site.
A short while later, Hanoch and Alice come along, and decide to join me at my campsite. We talk, share more herbal tea, I make a fire, and we all have dinner.
Miles today: 10
Total: 136
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 11. Today is the last day of this section of the hike, so I’m eager to get going. I’m up at 6:30 am, and on the trail by 8:15. It’s a pleasant morning hike, with a small climb to a ridge overlooking Shoe Lake basin. My destination this morning is the base of the White Pass Ski Resort, so I’m very happy when I cross over the ridge and can see the top of a chairlift on a nearby peak.
I stop to talk to a woman coming the other way. She’s a researcher setting camera traps, and is looking for evidence that certain carnivores are expanding into the area: the North Cascades red fox, the wolverine, and the gray wolf.
I arrive at White Pass at 12:30 having made good time. I walk up the highway to the Kracker Barrel, a gas station with a small market and a post office for thru-hikers. It’s nothing special, but they have a sit-down area with tables and chairs, and it feels great to sit down in a chair with a back. The market has a display of fried food sitting under heat lamps. I’d normally never buy such sad-looking food, but I’m so starved for solid food that I get an order of chicken wings and they taste fantastic. I also have a cherry soda poured over ice, and it tastes so good I have a second cherry soda. Then I feel ill.
I spend a couple of hours at the market waiting for Angela and the girls to come pick me up. I talk to one southbound thru-hiker who’s going very fast, at least 30 miles a day. I also see Hanoch and Alice coming down the chairlift trail, but don’t get a chance to chat with them. Angela and the girls arrive around 3:00, and it’s great to see them.
After piling back into the car, we head to Yakima for two nights — I’ll have a full day of rest tomorrow! Along the way, the girls don’t ask any questions about my hike. Instead, they mostly want to talk about the animated TV series, “Avatar: The Last Airbender”.
At Yakima, we check into the Hotel Maison. I shower, and am happy to change into some regular clothes that Angela brought for me. It’s cool in our hotel, but when we walk outside to get dinner, Yakima turns out be broiling hot, well over 90 degrees. I regret wearing jeans.
We have dinner at a restaurant named Cowiche Canyon, which is perfect. Having real food made from whole ingredients — a prawn and avocado salad, a grilled halibut — is awesome. Afterwards, I’m so tired I go to bed at 9:00 pm, the same as Bree.
Miles today: 11.5
Total: 148
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 12. The five of us spend the day in Yakima. In the morning, I do my laundry at a laundromat. We eat lunch at Jimmy Johns. There aren’t many family-friendly activities in Yakima — except for going on a hike, which I have ruled right out. We go to a movie theater to watch, “Finding Dory”.
It turns out that the hotel we’re in has a spa across from it, so Angela and I get massages. This does wonders for the muscles in my legs. Dinner is at a Korean barbecue restaurant.
Tomorrow I’ll be starting the next section of the trail, from White Pass to Snoqualmie Pass. While putting a tired Bree to bed, she tells me sleepily, “I’m going to miss you.”
Miles today: ZERO!
Total: 148
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 13. We pack up and have breakfast at a Starbucks. The hotel Wi-Fi was awful, so even with my phone working overnight, it couldn’t back up my PCT photos. Thankfully, the Starbucks Wi-Fi is zippy enough that I’m able to finish backing up my photos before we’re done eating.
Yakima is farm country, particularly for fruit, so on the way out of town, we stop at a place with an gigantic “FRUIT” sign over it. We pick up peaches, apricots, and the last of the season’s cherries.
Angela and the girls drop me off at the White Pass trailhead and we say goodbye. It’s a good day for hiking: sunny, but not too hot. For most of the day, I’m able to maintain a fast pace of 3 miles/hour.
I have lunch by a pond, joined by a day hiker. He breaks out his stove to boil water for tea, and graciously boils some for me so I can have tea myself. I enjoy some of the cherries I’ve brought with me. We’re passed by a very fast hiker who started in Yosemite, and is going about 30 miles/day.
Shortly after lunch, I see a small something leap off the trail and scamper around a tree. When it pokes its around the tree, I see that it’s a weasel.
I catch up with Hanoch and Alice again. They spent the past two nights at the tiny motel at White Pass. Their stay was restful, but the only place to eat was the Kracker Barrel market, and they’re sad because they didn’t get to eat any fresh fruit or vegetable. I surprise them by pulling out fresh cherries to share. Hanoch and Alice are elated. From this point on, I’m trying to increase my daily pace from 15 miles/day to 18 miles/day, which means I probably won’t see the two of them again. We say our goodbyes, then I keep going.
The trail has been mostly flat or descending for the afternoon, but it bottoms out at the Bumping River, which I cross over on a log. From that point on, the trail begins to climb, which it will continue to do for the next day and a half.
I pass a trail crew removing blowdowns (trees that have fallen across the trail). They tell me they’ve cleared out the trail for the next 17 miles or so, so I have that to look forward to. Most of the blowdowns that have been lying across the trail have been easy enough to get around, but it can take time, and in some cases getting around a blowdown can be tricky or strenuous.
I climb up to Crag Lake. My goal for afternoon is Two Lakes, but Crag Lake looks gorgeous, and the campfire smoke rising from it says other people are here, so I decide to camp here instead. The first two sites are occupied, but the unoccupied third site turns out to be the best of the three.
While washing off at the lake’s edge, I notice a family of elk at the lake’s west end watching me. When I move, they scatter. A while later, another hiker comes by to say hello, and while we’re chatting, we notice the elk have moved up to a steep meadow above the lake.
Miles today: 17
Total: 165
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 14. Today I’ve got a lunch appointment: my friend Bruce and his friend Chuck are meeting me for lunch at Chinook Pass at 12:30. That’s 12 miles ahead, so I get up early at 6:15 and hurry to get on the trail. I’m going as quickly as I can, but the trail climbs fairly steeply. I pass another southbound thru-hiker named Ginger who was discouraged by lousy weather in the North Cascades, so I’m happy to let her know that the forecast for the next week looks great.
I eventually reach a trail junction for American Lake, a spot where Bree and I camped last year, and for the next 7 miles, I’m walking along another part of the PCT I’ve hiked before. I pass by a tree with a bole shaped like a human butt which Bree and I thought was funny. Near a picturesque tarn, I stop to retrieve a geocache message Bree left me. The trail is thick with day hikers; I’m getting close to the trailhead at Chinook Pass.
It’s a sunny weekend in July, so the trailhead itself is absolutely jammed with cars, and people taking pictures are milling everywhere. That said, it’s still easy to spot Bruce and Chuck — as I approach the parking lot, I can see a small table set up with a white tablecloth and chairs. The table’s set for a nice luncheon, with plates, silverware, napkins, even a candle and a copy of the Sunday newspaper. Bruce has gone all-out with a gourmet meal: steak salad, salmon on crackers, fresh cherries, iced tea, and massive amounts of peach and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Other hikers ask whether they can get a seat too.
After we eat all we can, we pack up the picnic. Bruce and Chuck join me for the afternoon, hiking north on the PCT past Sheep Lake. (This is at least the third “Sheep Lake” I’ve passed. Someone told me there are four of them. Europeans that settled this area were either uninspired or really liked sheep.) The three of us climb over into the valley that’s home to Crystal Ski Resort. Eventually we reach a trail junction that will take Bruce and Chuck down to a car they’ve left at the ski area, so we say goodbye.
This is another one of those evenings where I can’t find any of several expected campsites. I finally reach a trail junction below Norse Peak, and when I can’t find the promised site there, make do with a flat-ish off-trail spot overlooking Basin Lake.
In the middle of the night, I hear more animals than usual. I hear something snuffling around, then it’s spooked by another animal and runs off. I hear some animal making a crying call. I hear a number of big animals gathering near my tent. On some signal they all run off in a heavy rumble of — hooves? Elk, probably. I think my chosen campsite is in the middle of an elk trail.
Miles today: 21.5 (longest day I’ve ever hiked)
Total: 187
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 15. After such difficulty finding a campsite last night, I’m chagrined to discover that a mere half mile of morning hiking brings me to a great campsite. The trail continues downhill and would be easy, but I come to a section with many, many blowdowns. There are some places where so many trees have blown down across the trail. it’s challenging just to figure out where to pick up the trail again.
After lunch I pass a crew of old men from a group called Backcountry Horsemen. They’re clearing the trail so horses can get through, but hikers benefit from their work, so I thank them. Since they’re working within Norse Peak Wilderness, they can’t use chainsaws. One of the men is slowly hacking at a tree with a large ax.
I come to Urich Cabin, a public shelter where I was thinking of camping tonight. It looks snug, but it looks like the kind of place that would be full of mice, and the outhouse is dense with flies, so I keep going. There’s a campsite a few miles ahead that’s supposed to be next to a spring, which sounds nice. As I’m getting close, I enter a large burned-out area. It’s exposed and hot, and I’m hoping the campsite is beyond it, under forest cover. It is!
The small site has two people in it, but they’re thru-hikers who are just stopping to rest and eat an early dinner. The woman has the trail name “Nuthatch”, the man is named Ben. Ben just finished thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail on July 1st, then he and Nuthatch drove across the country, and now they’re doing the PCT. That’s crazy.
Before leaving, Nuthatch mentions that a group of three women thru-hikers are coming down the trail, and that the woman named “Spice Rack” is celebrating her birthday tomorrow. The women arrive shortly, and Spice Rack is delighted to get some early birthday congratulations. I give the group some Belgian chocolates to share tomorrow so they have more to celebrate with than energy bars.
Miles today: 18
Total: 205
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 16. I keep meeting lots of southbound hikers, but for the past few days, I haven’t met many hikers going north like me. That makes this part of the trail a bit lonely. Worse, I’ve entered Forest Service land that’s been heavily logged and replanted. I keep crossing from mature forest into exposed acres of densely-packed small trees that provide no shade. At times, it feels like walking through a hedge maze. The hills here are small, with no views, no lakes, few rivers, and many abandoned dirt roads.
I eat lunch at one old road at Tacoma Pass, and am surprised when a pickup drives by. Who would drive here? As I cross over hills, occasionally I can get glimpses of Mt. Rainier. When I started two weeks ago, Rainier was far to the north. Now it’s receding to the south.
After a hot afternoon, I’m running low on water, so I’m looking forward to reaching a spring where I can fill up. The spring turns out to be a marshy area with a trickle running through grass. It takes forever to pick my way across the spongy ground to get to the water, and to fill my bottles without getting my feet soaked. I would have liked to rinse off, but there’s no way to do that here, so I hike on to the next spring. That one’s marshy too, complete with hopping frogs. So, no rinse today.
I camp in a nondescript forest spot at PCT mile mark 2370. There’s a low roaring sound in the distance: diesel trucks laboring up I-90 to Snoqualmie Pass.
Miles today: 21
Total: 226
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 17. Sometimes it takes two hours just to get on the trail in the morning, sometimes it happens quickly. Today I get up at 6:30 and manage to get on the trail by 8:00, the fastest yet.
There are ups and downs all day, and it’s hot. I eventually climb up to Mirror Lake, the first lake in days. It feels amazing to rinse off in the lake. I eat lunch there while listening to music on my phone’s speaker. Lots of other hikers enjoy listening to music while they hike, but for some reason that completely messes up my hiking rhythm, so I can only listen to music or podcasts when I’ve stopped.
A family of day hikers comes by. I mention that I’m looking forward to reaching Snoqualmie Pass and having a dinner that includes real vegetables. The father of the family says, “Oh, here! Have a carrot from the farmer’s market.” It is the best-tasting carrot ever.
The afternoon passes slowly, and the approach to Snoqualmie Pass seems to go on and on. The trail crosses many rockslides, and it’s impossible to walk across the loose talus without kicking the small, sharp rocks, or stepping on them at odd angles. After hiking on talus for hours, my feet feel bruised.
Eventually I reach a point where I can see the I-90 highway, which is getting louder and louder. There’s a final climb across a portion of trail still labeled “Cascade Crest Trail”: the predecessor to the current Pacific Crest Trail. Eventually I come over the top of a hill that’s part of the Snoqualmie Pass ski areas, and walk down under the ski lifts towards the ski area base.
I’m nearly at the trailhead when I turn a corner and am confronted by a large black Doberman dog. It’s startled too, and begins to bark and growl menacingly. It’s owner, far behind, makes a half-hearted apology, and hooks on a leash that they will undoubtedly take off again as soon as I’m out of sight.
I walk along the frontage road paralleling the highway, stopping at a drive-thru espresso stand for an Italian soda. Drinking something with ice in it seems magical.
I check into the Summit Inn, and do my laundry while wearing my rain gear again. I’m using coin-operated laundry machines more on this trip than at any point since college. My room is next to the highway, but the front desk informed me that I was lucky: “There’s an outbuilding right in front of your window, so you won’t have any view, but that’s one of the quietest rooms.”
There’s an upscale pub across the street called The Commonwealth (named after the nearby Commonwealth Basin). After eating reconstituted meals in mylar bags for days, eating real food is a revelation. A caprese salad tastes fantastic, as does a spicy chicken sandwich.
Miles today: 20
Total: 246
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 18. Even though the motel room is next to the highway, I get a great night’s sleep. I have breakfast at the motel’s Pancake House restaurant, trying to eat as fresh fruit as possible. Angela arrives with my resupply box and helps me get everything ready for the next section. She drops me off at the trailhead around 11:15 am, and then it’s back on the trail.
I’m feeling apprehensive about all the climbing I’ll have to do in this next section. Of all the sections in Washington, this part of the PCT has the most elevation gain: 13,500 ft of elevation gained over only 75 miles of trail. I’m planning to hike it in 4 days, so each day will entail at least 3,000 ft of elevation gain, and a fair distance to boot.
I thought I’d try hiking with headphones again to relieve some of the boredom, but no dice. Within about 5 minutes of putting in the headphones, I’m so unsettled by the mismatch between the song’s rhythm and my hiking pace that, for the first time on this trip, I miss a turn in the trail and have to backtrack. The headphones go back in my pack.
I’m hiking up into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and it certainly has a lot of pretty lakes. The afternoon is spent making a long traverse of the Chikamin Ridge before I finally drop into the Parks Lake basin. On one long stretch of trail, I come to a huge tree that’s blown down across the trail. I eventually manage to scramble around it, but on the other side I can’t find the trail again. I circle around and around — no trail. Where could it have gone? I eventually have to consult my GPS, and realize that the tree has fallen down exactly on top of a switchback. The trail reverses direction just where the tree feel, and for the first 80 yards below the switchback, the trail is completely covered by the tree trunk. So that’s twice in one day I’ve been momentarily lost.
My goal for today is Spectacle Lake, a really beautiful lake at which I camped two years ago — on my very first backpacking trip to prepare for this hike. Since I started late in the morning, I don’t get to Spectacle Lake until 7:15 pm. I barely have enough time to rinse off, rush through setting up camp, make dinner, and pay a visit to the lake’s toilet (far from the lake) before it gets dark.
From my tent, I watch the moon rise over the lake, and when I inevitably wake up during the night, I can look out and see stars. Even though I’ve been camping out for over two weeks now, I’m rarely awake after the stars have come out, and usually don’t have such an unobstructed view of the sky.
Miles today: 17
Total: 263
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 19. The sun comes up, shining directly over the lake into my tent. The morning’s hiking is slowed by many blowdowns, each presenting a puzzle: what’s the easiest way around this tree? Sometimes the best way is under the tree, sometimes over, sometimes on the uphill side, sometimes the downhill side. Often the best solution is to look for clues to see where everyone else has stepped, climbed, or scrambled.
In contrast to yesterday, I don’t have much energy this morning. It occurs to me that I’ve been feeling much better the first day I get back on the trail after a resupply, because I’ve had the chance to eat real food. It finally dawns on me that, while my meal plan was fine for a week-long hike, this longer hike requires a lot more calories per day.
After crossing Lemah Creek, I start a huge climb on switchbacks through an exposed burn. The sun’s hot today, and I’m drinking at least twice as much water as I usually do. I’ve been very careful to keep my water bottle topped up, but there’s no water ahead for a while, and I’m worried about running out. It won’t be a fatal problem, but it’ll be uncomfortable.
I’m passed by two hikers with the trail names “K2” and “Atlantis”. These are the first real northbound thru-hikers I’ve met. Most northbound thru-hikers start at the Mexican border at the end of April, and don’t reach Washington State until the beginning of September. These two are over a month ahead of the main pack. They don’t hike particularly fast — just a little bit faster than me — but they’re hiking for many more hours every day.
Just as my water is running out, I reach a rocky basin with a small pond, and above the pond is patch of melting snow. I make a “backcountry soda”: two fizzy Nuun drink tablets, some sugar, with icy-cold water and a pile of snow. It’s a reasonable approximation of a soda, and it tastes delicious.
After finally cresting the top of the ridge, I begin a long descent down another series of switchbacks to reach the beautiful Waptus River around 5:30 pm. At my intended campsite, a forest ranger named John is camping, and he’s happy to share the site.
I’m careful to pick out a site for my tent; I don’t want to upset the ranger by inadvertently camping on any vegetation. I finally find a good spot and begin to pitch my tent. John calls out, “Um, Jan? I think you’ve pitched your tent in the middle of the PCT.” Ah. I’d though the trail went around our campsite, but it turns out it actually goes straight through. I have indeed pitched my tent right across the trail. I sheepishly move my tent to the side of the trail.
A fast southbound thru-hiker named “Broken Toe” stops to chat. He’s aiming to complete the entire PCT in only 90 days. (A typical time for a thru-hike is closer to 5 months.) I’ve noticed a change in the southbound hikers. When Chris and I started hiking north in mid-July, the southbounders we met had started in mid-June. They were willing to deal with some snow remaining on trails in the North Cascades in order to give themselves the maximum time possible to get through the Sierra Mountains in California before the snowstorms hit. Now I’m meeting a more hardcore class of hiker: starting later for better weather, but hiking faster.
Another southbound thru-hiker named Beau joins John and me at our site. The three of us have dinner around a campfire and share stories. My favorite story of John’s is his explanation of the measures the rangers take to clear trails in the wilderness. By law, in a designated wilderness, people are not allowed to use mechanical devices like chainsaws to remove the blown-down trees. Generally speaking, the Forest Service rangers try to limit themselves to technology available in the 1930s, such as axes and crosscut saws. However, trees that fall down in the North Cascades can be much larger — over 6 feet in diameter — and can’t be removed with saws. The solution? Explosives. They’re not mechanical, and existed in the 1930s.
Miles today: 17.5
Total: 281
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 20. I hike past a pretty lake named Deep Lake. I wish I had time to stop and rest there, but it’s still pretty early in the morning, and I have a full day’s hike to make. The outlet of Deep Lake is a beautiful, quiet river with stones placed just right for hopping across.
I pass several hikers. The name of the first sounds is Gwen (or “Qwen”?), and she’s hiking slowly because she has a splitting migraine.
The second person is a northbound hiker named Sylvia. She’s chatting with a southbound woman when I meet them. As I pass them, Sylvia asks if she can hike with me for a while. Sure, I say, it’d be nice to have company. We chat as we climb a series of switchbacks. Sylvia has the same DeLorme satellite text messaging device that I have, but unlike me has given her contact info to all her friends. Every day, she receives a torrent of incoming messages, and she feels obligated to respond to all of them. Unfortunately, her phone’s broken, so she can no longer compose messages on the phone, but has to use the DeLorme’s crude text-entry system instead. It takes forever just to compose a short reply, so now she feels that keeping in touch with the outside world has become an onerous chore.
The next person I pass is a young southbound man taking a break to filter some water. His professed daily mileage isn’t high, so I ask him whether he thinks he’ll be able to reach the Sierras in California before the snow. He has no idea, but is optimistic he can get there before November. I’d heard elsewhere that it was critical to get through the Sierras before October, so this hiker is actually extremely optimistic about both his pace and the weather. In fact, this man will turn out to be the beginning of a third type of southbound thru-hikers I’ll meet. The first type were the conservative hikers who started early in order to beat the snow in the Sierras. I’ve already passed all of those people, and they’re now far south of Washington. The second type are the hardcore hikers that start late but go very quickly. Those people will also beat the snow. The third type of southbounder is like this guy: delusional. There’s no chance he’s going to finish his hike in one season, but I wish him luck anyway.
I have lunch at a pass over Hyas Lake. A while later, traversing a ridge, I come to a point where it’s necessary to cross a river. This crossing is only the second seriously scary point I’ll encounter on the trail. (The first was the glacier crossing on Old Snowy Mountain.) The river here isn’t particularly deep, but it’s steep and fast. There are lots of rocks, and the hikers I see crossing the river are doing their best to hop across. But the rocks aren’t placed for easy hopping, and they’re sharp — one seems more likely to sustain an injury from a bad hop than by getting swept off one’s feet by the river. In fact, after several attempts to find my way across, I realize that the safest way to cross this river is also the simplest: just walk through it. My feet get wet, but that’s a small price to pay. Meanwhile, Gwen, who passed me while I was eating lunch, is herself eating a late lunch a little ways up the trail. If I got swept off my feet, at least someone would have been able to hear me scream.
I regret not stopping for a break earlier today at Deep Lake so, since I’m doing well on time, I decide to stop at Deception Pass for a tea break. When I get to the pass, it’s already occupied by four people — and six llamas. The people are bringing supplies on llamas to a trail crew, and have stopped to rest. They’re relaxing on actual chairs, eating food off an actual table — all of which the llamas have been carrying. I stop and chat with them for a while. The llamas are cute.
In the late afternoon I reach Deception Lakes. It’s buggy, but the next campsite is miles ahead, and there’s a nice open spot at the lake’s south end. I talk with an older couple camping nearby, a female solo hiker, and a couple of young guys fishing.
Miles today: 18.5
Total: 300!
Jan’s WA PCT hike, Day 21. I’m up at sunrise, around 5:45 am, in order to meet Angela and the girls at Stevens Pass around 3:00. It’s misty and cool.
I’m climbing up to Piper Pass, the first of several passes to cross today, when there’s an explosion of fluttering next to the trail. I’ve startled a mother grouse and her chicks. The mother seems to be injured, and runs flapping in circles. She hobbles up the trail — and then I notice that she’s waiting for me. She keeps hobbling a bit, then peering over her shoulder to see if I’m coming. This is all a big act to look appetizing and draw me away from her children. After a minute of running ahead of me up the trail, she decides I’m far enough away from the chicks, and takes to the air. She doesn’t fly straight back, though — she flies off to the side, probably making a big circle back to her chicks.
Piper Pass affords a nice view of Glacier Lake and Surprise Lake. The sun begins to come out by the time I reach the next pass, giving Trap Lake below a bright blue color. I eat lunch at Mig Lake, then continue past several more lakes to the back side of the Stevens Pass ski resort. It’s odd to be walking across a clearing in what looks like wilderness, and see a tree with a huge sign halfway up it announcing the name and difficulty of a ski run. It’s a slog to get to the top of the ridge and finally drop down into the ski area proper. A fair bit of excited shouting can be heard: mountain bikers are taking the ski lifts up, then riding down the mountain.
I meet Angela, Liya, and Bree at the base of Stevens Pass. (Anya’s spending the night with a friend.) We drive to Leavenworth on the east side of the pass, and check into Sleeping Lady Lodge, a nice place where Liya and I have been before. It’s very relaxing, and we have a nice cabin with a cozy window alcove bed for Bree and a loft bed for Liya. There’s a fun pool nearby and a huge hot tub. We all wish we could stay here for two nights instead of just one.
The lodge’s buffet dinner is as good as Liya and I remember. I’m so happy to have fresh vegetables that I end up making two passes through the salad bar.
Miles today: 17.5
Total: 317