Week 21:Trout Lake to White Pass

 Day 149: (August 27) Jessie the Wonderdog

I spent most of the day updating the blog, charging electronics and packing. For breakfast, I walked down to the Cafe and had the "Mt Adams Special" ( 1 Huckleberry Pancake, Sausage and 2 eggs ).

I chatted with a customer who was driving his Mum from England ( he is also from England ) about different places to visit. He was kind enough to pay for my meal and then his wife sent me an email requesting to be added to the blog list.

The kind family who bought me breakfast.

Sarah left at 1:30, leaving her Garmin Inreach for me to charge. I checked my finances while everything charged and it looks like I might need to pull some funds from my investments.  Oh well. 

I caught the 5:30 "shuttle" ( a pickup truck: the four of us rode in the back ) and was dropped off at 6:00.

Doug talking to hikers he dropped off.

The other three were a man from Romania, a woman from California and her dog, Jessie who has "hiked" almost 1500 miles of the PCT (minus the areas of sharp rocks that would damage her paws). 

Jessie (aka Ewok) has hiked
1500 miles of the PCTon her own four feet.

I managed to hike 3.7 miles to a campsite near a spring.

When I got there were 5 other hikers already camped there so I had to make do with whatever space I could find.

Day 150: Crazy Creek Crossing

Campsite at the Spring

I got started at 7 and hiked at a fast pace so I could catch up to Sarah and give her her Garmin Inreach.  I caught up to her at 9AM after hiking almost 5 miles. Sarah is hoping to fo another 25 miles. I doubt we will, but it would be nice. As we started hiking I got some nice photos of Mt. Adams and Mt Saint Helens. 

Mt Adams

Mt. Saint Helens

At 11:45 we reached Adams Creek. Adams Creek was flowing very fast.

Adams Creek in full force.

We spent 10 minutes or so scouting for a place to cross. The best we could find was a short, 15 foot log/ rock crossing to an "island" in the the middle of the creek, followed by a 30 foot +/- log crossing to the far shore. I admit it, I whimped out, so Sarah crossed first. When it came my turn to cross, I  was so scared, my knees were trembling as I  walked across. 

Sarah leading the way.

Now, the hard part....

A couple of times on the long log, my knees were shaking so bad, I thought for sure I was going to fall in, but I managed to make it across. 

The rest of the day's hike was uneventful, although we did see a Black Bear across a pond in the evening.

Stay right there and we'll be just fine.

When we finally reached camp around 7:30, we were both aching everywhere from the long 24 miles we had hiked. We plan to sleep in tomorrow morning.

Day 151: Dina, First Pass and a Waterfall

Who let the Mouse in Here !! I woke up at 2:30 AM after a mouse ran across my head. He had come through a gap in the broken zipper on my tent. I spent the next 10 minutes chasing him out of my tent. Fortunately, he didn't get near my food.

We started hiking around 8 and quickly reached the border of the Yakima Nation.

I checked and double checked,  but I didn't see the restrictions that are in place at the Warm Springs Reservation,  but we still hiked through fairly quickly. Sarah got cell coverage on a ridge with a good view of Mt Adams and spent 30 minutes answering important emails.  

About 3PM, we met Dina ( pronounced Deana ) whose trailname is Sage.

She has two black eyes, but I am not going to ask what happened.

Snowgrass in bloom. 
Looks like Einsteins hairstyle.

She joined us as we hiked over Cispus Pass, our first pass in Washington state.

Sarah and I hiking to Cispus Pass 
Photo by Dina

One of the original PCT trail markers

A bit after 6 we crossed a waterfall flowing across the trail that feeds the Cispus River.

Sarah and Dina 
Collecting water at Cispus Falls

I have learned to take the "Official" listings in FarOut with a grain of salt. At 6:45 we reached a campsite that, according to FarOut has room for three tents. There were already 3 tents set up when we got there, and there was still room for our three tents and a few more.

Sunset at our campsite

Day 152: Hiking Snow and The Knifes Edge

Dina striking her tent
My tent is in the front Sarah's is in the back

Dina hiking towards Old Snowy
Mt Adams is in the background

We left camp around 8 and made good time until we got to a large patch of snow below Old Snowy Mountain ( which ironically was snow free ) at mile 2277. The snow patch is about 600 feet long ( it is the longest patch I have hiked on the PCT ) and has a steep slope downhill if you slip. Of course, nobody had microspikes.....

Sarah leads the way across the first snowpatch

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Dina is almost across the first snowpatch 

When we got across the snowpatch, we had the option of either continuing on the PCT or taking the alternate route over Old Snowy.

We had just decided to stick to the PCT, when a man came down the Old Snowy Alternate and advised us not to take it.

Rob gave us lots of good advice.

Rob told us that the route over Old Snowy was rocky and a little tricky. He had planned on hiking the alternate,  but turned back when his wife Jenny got concerned about the rocky trail. Rob is a former Search and Rescue manager with 17 years of experience,  so when he speaks, I listen VERY carefully.

Rob gives Sarah some advice as 
Dina catches up

  Rob gave us lots of good advice on hiking through snow. Good thing, because a couple hundred yards further, we came to a second patch of snow that was even scarier than the first. Rob taught us how to make a good path through the snow and how to stop a slide if we fell. The second snow patch was so steep, that if we fell, we would slide about 1000 feet down the mountain.  Rob told us one very important thing he said he had learned from a mountaineer: "Always climb or hike what is right in front of you".

You would think, that after two tricky patches of slightly slushy  snow (the most dangerous kind), the trail would get easier.  Unfortunately that didn't happen.  After the snow came The Knife Edge, a steep, narrow 2.5 mile stretch of trail that was almost as scary as Adams Creek.

Rob and Jenny follow Dina onto the Knifes Edge 

Sarah and Dina traverse a steep, 
winding portion of the Knifes Edge

Dina follows "Baby Singer"
through a stretch of loose rock on trail.

Looking back on the Knifes Edge.
See that black triangle under the whispy cloud ?
That's Old Snowy Mountain 

A 5' tunnel through a patch of snow we avoided

A stream flows through a meadow
of wildflowers below the Knifes Edge

We had hoped to hike to Hidden Spring Junction, which would have made today's journey a 17 mile hike. By 6:30 Dina was clearly exhausted so we stopped at a campsite after hiking 14.6 miles today. 

Day 153: Into White Pass

When I woke up at 5 AM, it was sprinkling. I'm being generous,  it obviously isn't raining much if you can count the number of raindrops that hit your tent on your fingers and toes.  Dina was first to get on trail at 6:45 and I was on the trail 5 minutes later. By 7, the skies were clear. Dina and I  stopped at a couple of streams about 0.6 miles up the trail for water. The streams didn't have much of a flow, so we used the " Magic Leaf" trick to get the water to flow into our containers.

  Sarah caught up to us as we were filtering water. 

Greg ( aka Sir Gregory ) passed us at about 10. It turns out that all three of us have hiked with Greg at some point this year. Sarah started with him at the border and Dina had hiked with him in Oregon. He was sporting a Dwarven style beard that "Waterfall" did for him. Looks pretty cool. 

Sir Gregory sporting a new style beard

An "older" style of beard.
Old Man's Beard on the side of a tree

Along the way,  I  stopped from time to time to take photos of Mount Rainier. 

At Noon, we stopped for a quick break at the highest point of today's hike, where we met "Dogfoot" a fellow photographer.  I took a couple of shots if Mt Rainier peeking over a nearby ridgeline.

As we rested, Dina told us how she got her black eyes. She was hiking down a slope when her right foot tripped over a root. Then her left foot tripped on another root and her trekking poles got stuck and she fell forward. She had a split second to think that everything was OK before her backpack flew up, slamming her head into the ground, breaking her nose.

Dina's bruises have faded a bit

OUCH !! Ever since then ( it happened a few days before Trail Days ) she has been cautious going down steep slopes. I don't blame her,  I am cautious going down steep stairs for the same reason. Fortunately, the break was clean and straight.  If she didn't tell me,  I would never guessed she had a broken nose. 

Almost looks like an Easter Island statue

We stopped at a lake about 1.5 miles from US-12 ( Yes the same US-12 that runs south of Jackson ) and Sarah took a quick swim. We reached the trail about 2 PM and started hiking towards the Kracker Barrel Store.

A US Army Blackhawk helicopter flew over us

This store is not part of the restaurant chain that has restaurants throughout the South and Midwestern US, which is a good thing and a not so good thing. It's good, because it acts as a Post Office so hikers can ship things ( like a backpack and a bix full of food ) and pick them up there and they sell things ( food, chips, candy, etc... ) that hikers need on trail. It doesn't offer as much as the General Store in Trout Lake, but it's pretty good. The not so good is that the "restaurant" portion of the store doesn't offer much and was out if almost everything (due to a supply glitch) when we arrived. 

The good news is that both the resupply box I had mailed from Trout Lake and my Backpack are here. YEAH !! My coworkers are AWESOME ! They not only managed to figure out how to ship the pack to me ( they aren't shipping clerks, that's my job ) they also wrote all sorts of encouraging notes on the outside of the box. 

Thanks folks ! Your words of encouragement really mean a lot. To be honest, there has been many a time almost every day where I've thought " I can't wait for this to be over ", so your encouragement means a lot.

While I was getting my boxes, Dina rented a room for us in the condos up the hill. The catch is that she has to rent the room for two nights. ZERO DAY TOMORROW!! YEAH !! After we had a bite to eat, we went up to the room and showered. I then did everyone's laundry in one load.  After the laundry was done, we had frozen pizza for dinner.

After Dinner, Dina helped me adjust my pack. Good thing I can adjust the torso length or it would be as uncomfortable as my old one. Before bed we watched a PBS program on the Dust Bowl that happened in the 1930s.  It was worse than I had been taught. What those people went through makes a through hike seem like a leisurely stroll through a city park.  

Day 154: Zero Day in White Pass / Packwood

Man we're we tired. We all slept in until about 9. About 11, we went to the highway and tried to get a hitch to Packwood, a small town about 13 miles west of White Pass. I forgot to take my camera, so no photos. Dina needed to get a few things from a grocery store and Sarah and I had nothing better to do. We spent about an hour trying to get a hitch without much luck. Much to our surprise, a semi stopped and gave two hikers in front of us a lift into Packwood. About 30 minutes later a woman stopped and offered the three of us and a German section hiker a lift, but one of us had to ride with her husband. 

We got into Packwood at 12:30 and had lunch. Then we did some shopping ( I didn't buy anything ) and browsed through the flea market they had in town. There was everything from military memorabilia and costume jewelry to comic books and toys. At 4 PM, we started to try to hitch a ride back to White Pass. We must have tried the "Magic Thumb" for half an hour before I thumbed down a Semi. It was the same driver who gave our friends a ride this morning.  The three of us fit into his cab and then he picked up the two hikers he drove into Packwood this morning !! This has to be something of a record: The same SEMI driver giving the same people a ride in both directions on the same day. His name is Javier and he spends every day for three months every year hauling corn from farms east of White Pass to Packwood.

Javier driving us back to White Pass
Photo by Dina

In the evening we soaked our feet and hand fed a bunch of Canada Jays.