Mile 2,451.48 to Dinsmore’s Hiker Haven

Mile 2,451.48 to Dinsmore’s Hiker Haven

by | Aug 5, 2015 | Hikertrash Cont...Part 2, Pacific Crest Trail

Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Day 5: Mile 2,451.48 to Dinsmore’s Hiker Haven
Miles: 10.14
Total Miles: 2461.62
Miles to Go: 197.29

It was cold; not Washington snowstorm cold, but cold enough that when our Krav alarm went off, no one was motivated to peel themselves out of their sleeping bags. I popped my head out of the tent to see Krav making breakfast from bed again.

Usually, I don’t make breakfast from bed out of fear of accidentally lighting the tent, and subsequently the forest, on fire. Every time I think to myself, “Hey, let’s make breakfast from bed this morning,” it’s immediately followed by visions of me running around, hair singed, hiking shorts still smoldering, trying to collect all the marmots and pikas to herd them away from the flames. This morning, however, I tightly wrapped up the fly and made an exception.

Not that breakfast was that hard or even required that much cooking— we were down to a bagel, some granola, and enough freeze-dried coffee to make one weak cup. Of all the things I could have been low on, why did it have to be the coffee?! I needed it. Caffeine and sugar are Hummingbird jet fuel. How was I supposed to fly down the trail sans fuel?

The ten miles to Stevens Pass went by in slow motion. It wasn’t just the lack of coffee slowing me down; I was procrastinating. I knew that within ten minutes of arriving at Stevens Pass, I would be out on the side of Highway 2 with my thumb out. Most of the planning I’d done for this trip was just me staring at fluffy clouds, dreading the handful of times I would be forced to stand on the side of the road and beg for a ride.

It isn’t riding with strangers; I don’t mind that part. But that’s probably only because I’ve never had what I would consider an “awkward” hitch. I’ve had friends tell me stories of taking rides where the driver refused to speak to them or rides with people that drove ninety-miles-an-hour while explaining that they were recovering drug addicts. The worst was some thru-hiking friends telling me the story of a woman who’d given them a ride in California. Apparently, she’d made room for them by removing her toddler from the front seat, but not before scolding her for drinking “mommy’s beer.” I’m blessed that the nicest people tend to offer us rides.

What I hate, is standing on the side of the road with my thumb out. Everything about it feels wrong. I, like most people, grew up being taught never to take rides from strangers, and never to pick up hitchhikers. Why do you never accept rides from strangers? Because all strangers that offer you a ride are potentially sex-crazed, knife-wielding, homicidal, escaped convict, sociopaths who just want to abduct you and kill you. And why do you never pick up hitchhikers? Because all hitchhikers that need a ride are potentially sex-crazed, knife-wielding, homicidal, escaped convict, sociopaths who just want to steal your car and kill you. Whenever I find myself on the side of the road, I feel like everyone that goes by automatically assumes I’m a wacko that probably wants to kill them. Suddenly, I want everyone to stop, not so they can offer me a ride, but so I have the chance to explain to them that I am not a monster.

It’s amazing how long it can take you to hike ten miles when you aren’t that motivated. We stopped a half a dozen times to put on and take off our jackets. We spent a good thirty minutes picking perfectly ripe gooseberries and huckleberries – the first berries we’d seen in abundance on the trail this year, I might add. I wandered off the trail at Mig Lake to find the “toilets” FluffyStar had been so excited about (and then felt bad for her when I discovered they were nothing more than wooden boxes with holes in the top.) And we talked to every thru-hiker, section hiker, and day-hiker we came across.

The thru-hikers and section hikers were full of woeful news regarding the fire closures. It sounded bad, but as Bearclaw reminded Krav and me, “There is no point in worrying about it until we get to Hiker Haven and have access to the latest news.”

At the top of the ski hill, we met a day-hiker that stopped my lollygagging dead in its tracks.

“You guys must be headed into Steven’s for burgers!”

“There’s burger in Steven’s?!”

“Yeah, they have a great little restaurant.”

OMG?! Why hadn’t someone informed us of this hours ago? We could already be there eating hamburgers!

And just like that, we were off, stopping only once to coax a blue-lipped Krav out of the middle of a blueberry patch. All it took was these magic words, “There’s a restaurant at Steven’s Pass.”

Halfway down the hill, Bearclaw had a horrible thought. “What if it isn’t open today? It is a Wednesday.”

“Why would the guy tell us there were hamburgers at the restaurant if it wasn’t even open?” I questioned. “If it isn’t, I’m going to hike all the way back up here and kick him in the balls.”

“Yeah, you like that?! Did that feel good?! Because that’s how my stomach felt when I found out the restaurant was closed. A$$h0le.” Krav laughed.

At the very bottom of the trail was a sign welcoming thru-hikers. The very last thing it had listed was the restaurant hours: Friday – Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It was Wednesday.

Lucky for that hiker, I was too lazy (and hungry) to follow through with my threat. Son of a Hamburgalar, now eating real food meant hitching.

As we walked across the overpass and down to the road, I waited for the inevitable. Wait for it….

“You should probably be the one to stand there with your thumb out– women are less threatening.”

….And, there it was.

For five minutes, I stood there, watching drivers pass by us. Not a single car so much as braked.

“I bet we’d have more luck if we just went and asked people in the parking lot if they would give us a ride,” Bearclaw said as we watched people come and go from the nearly full lot across the highway.

That sounded a thousand times better than spending the rest of the afternoon with my thumb out.

“You should probably be the one to ask – women are less threatening.”

Despite what people think, I am quite shy. I can think of a thousand things I would rather do than strike up a conversation with someone I don’t know. When I was little, if anyone I didn’t know tried to talk to me, I would run and hide behind either my mom or my dad’s legs. Unfortunately, I was now a good seven inches taller than my mom, and the same height as my dad. Besides, neither of them was here. Pulling up my big girl panties, I scanned the parking lot for someone who appeared to be leaving that looked as if they might be willing to give three dirty hikers a ride to the nearest restaurant. Sighing, I resigned myself to the fact that I was likely going to have to ask almost everyone in the parking lot before I received a “yes.”

Closest to us were two white SUVs with their back hatches open. Behind one, a statuesque woman with the killer looks of Uma Thurman in “Pulp Fiction” was loading a large blow-up whale into the trunk. A young girl in a jean skirt and billowy Boho top danced at her feet, her Barbie-blonde hair sparkling in the sun. Behind the other SUV, an impeccably dressed, middle-aged woman was closing her hatch door. There was no way these women were going to say yes. But I had nothing to lose by asking.

“Hello! You don’t happen to be heading west, do you? If you are would you be willing to give three dirty hiker’s a ride to Skykomish? We’re really nice people, I promise.” I smiled, and then immediately wanted to kick myself. “We’re really nice people, I promise,” really Hummingbird? Yeah, because that isn’t creepy and weird…

“Sure, but only because you’re really nice people.” Uma smiled. “We just need to rearrange a few things to make room.”

I could have hugged her for saving me the horror of having to ask anyone else for a ride (and for trusting that I wasn’t an ax-wielding maniac.) But again, that would have been creepy and weird.

Our saviors were Vhari (Uma) and her daughter Kealy. While Bearclaw sat in the front and explained to Vhari exactly what it was we were doing, Krav and I sat in the back with our new friend Kealy.

“Kealy’s a really pretty name. I’ve never met a Kealy before.”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Hummingbird.”

“Really?” She smiled and stared at me a moment, trying to decide if I was telling the truth.

“Well, it’s my trail name. My friends call me Hummingbird.”

“I’ve never met a Hummingbird before.” She giggled.

Kealy was highly entertaining. She had a new stuffed bear her grandma had brought her all the way from Alaska. On the drive, she named him “Woods” Alaska Bearclaw, “Woods” being his trail name. Woods subsisted on a diet of Rock Candy, which made me think he’d make a great thru-hiker. When Kealy asked if she could pet Krav’s beard, I laughed so hard I almost cried.

Vhari was amazing. She drove us into to Skykomish, found us a restaurant, and then joined us for lunch. The fact that we were filthy didn’t seem to faze her at all. She seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing and concerned for our well-being. She even saved us from having to hitch a ride out of Skokomish and delivered us directly to the front door of Hiker Haven. Hours after they had gone, I was still thanking the trail gods for their awesomeness.

Andrea and Jerry, the trail angels that are Hiker Heaven, were as wonderful as their reputations suggested. Within no time, we had our resupply boxes, had showered, and were waiting for our laundry to dry.

There was a handful of other hiker’s hanging out— Paint Your Wagon and Sobo Fett– were headed south. While fellow NoBo’s – Czech Mix, Poco Loco, Chardonnay, and a couple who were section hiking Washington— were all trying to figure out how they wanted to continue north.

There appeared to only be two options to get around the fire closure in Section K:

1. Hitch a ride to Chelan and take the ferry up to Stehekin. From Stehekin, we could then take the shuttle back to the PCT at High Bridge; this would mean skipping a hundred and four miles of trail.

2. Hike seventy miles up the PCT to the Suittle River Trail, then hike ten miles east along the Suittle River to the trailhead parking lot. From there it would be a twenty-two-mile road walk up Suittle River Road 26 to State Route 530. From 530, it would be twelve miles to Rockport on Highway 20, and another seventy-three miles up to Rainy Pass; this was the new “official” reroute, but no one seemed to know a whole lot about it.

For Krav, Bearclaw, and I, this was a no-brainer. We would skip as few miles of trail as we could. Deciding on the “official” detour, I called Stehekin and asked postmaster Jonathan to forward our boxes to Winthrop. I then called my dad, who was driving down from Canada to meet us at Rainy Pass, and asked if he could meet us in Rockport instead. All our business attended to, we cracked open a bottle of beer, ordered pizzas, and sat down to enjoy some good old hikertrash company.

A Small Lake
A Small Lake
The Ski Hill @ Stevens Pass
The Ski Hill @ Stevens Pass
Fire Closure Notice
Fire Closure Notice
Dinsmore's Hiker Haven
Dinsmore’s Hiker Haven
Deep Lake to Mile 2,451.48

Deep Lake to Mile 2,451.48

by | Aug 4, 2015 | Hikertrash Cont...Part 2, Pacific Crest Trail

Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Day 4: Deep Lake to Mile 2,451.48
Miles: 19.01
Total Miles: 2,451.48
Miles to Go: 207.43

Having gone to bed long before sunset, we were up at the ass-crack of dawn, ready to hike. Even with a leisurely morning breakfast, we were still the first group to leave the lake. Hopping over the stones that crossed the outlet, we made our way up the series of switchbacks that lead away from the lake towards the top of Cathedral Pass. Still shaded from the morning sun, we hiked fast just to stay warm, watching the alpenglow that bathed the spire of Cathedral Peak slowly work its way further down the hillside. By the time we reached the top of the pass, even the deepest parts of the valley were bathed in the glorious warm morning sun. As we sat down to strip off unwanted layers, Tin Man and Crawfish cruised up behind us.

Tin Man and Crawfish never said much, and when they did, we got the distinct impression they felt as if we’d entered into an unspoken competition with them. A competition they were more than confident they would win. Krav, Bearclaw and I weren’t at all competitive, so it just made our run-ins with them awkward. Eager to beat us to where ever they thought we were going, they barely stopped at the top of the pass long enough to take in the view before they were gone again. The few conversations we’d had with them had been so uncomfortable I secretly hoped they’d stay ahead of us for the rest of the trail.

From Cathedral Pass, we had two options: staying on the Official PCT or take the alternate around Hyas Lake on the Robin Creek Trail.

Our HalfMile Maps had the following warning, “The potentially difficult ford at WA2439 may not be passable early in the hiking season after a high snow year.”

The alternate appeared to add a lot of extra miles, and it was late in a hot, dry year, so we stuck with the official trail, which worked its way high above Hyas Lake—a long navy gem at the bottom of the broad forested valley.

I’ve only been intimidated by high creek crossings once or twice in my life, mostly because I’m rarely out in the mountains in adverse weather. Call me a “fair weather” hiker if you will, but marching through early spring snowpack isn’t my thing. My last high-creek crossing had been recent enough that it played in an unstoppable loop in the back of my mind as we hiked up the trail towards the “potentially difficult ford.”

Earlier in the year, BunnySlayer, Bearclaw and I had gone on an overnight backpack into the Deschutes River Canyon. Just before camp, we’d crossed the thigh-deep, swiftly flowing waters of Whychus Creek a few hundred feet upstream from its confluence with the Deschutes River. It hadn’t been a simple hop-skip-and-a-jump, but it also hadn’t been anything we couldn’t manage. That night, however, it rained high up in the mountains, and when we awoke the next morning, the Deschutes was noticeably higher. This did not bode well for the water levels in the creek, we thought. Sure enough, the tender, early spring shoots of grass that lined the creek banks were now submerged under a good half a foot of water.

Experienced at hazardous water crossings, BunnySlayer had valiantly offered to cross first. We watched as he forced his way across the creek one deliberate step at a time.

“You’re going to want to make sure and be downstream of her when you guys cross,” BunnySlayer warned Bearclaw after he’d safely reached the far side.

Two steps in and the icy cold water was already lapping at my unbuckled hip-belt. My legs stung, my poles vibrated with such force that I could barely keep them in my hands. Two more steps and I couldn’t even force my poles to meet the creek bed. Halfway across the creek, the current was so intense it pushed my feet along the pebbly creek bed. I was being pushed downstream, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“Um, my feet are moving on their own you guys.” I was upright, but I knew if I slid into a big rock I wouldn’t be for long. From the bank, BunnySlayer could see the fear in my eyes.

“You’re going to need to grab her.” He told Bearclaw, who was one step ahead of me, fighting the current himself. Bearclaw turned around and grabbed my arm. Together, he and BunnySlayer pulled me onto dry land.

As we made our way towards this “potentially hazardous ford” I could still feel the unease of having no control over my own feet, and I wasn’t a fan. Theoretically, I know the basics of what you’re supposed to do if you’re swept downstream, but I’d rather not have to test this knowledge. Preferably, ever. “Remove backpack and swim to shore,” sounded simple on land, but I have a feeling the level of difficulty grows exponentially when you can’t see and are trying desperately not to drown.

The closer we got to this unnamed creek, the more overgrown the trail became. “What if no one comes this way because of how scary this crossing is?” I thought. It was late in an extremely dry season, how bad could it be? Hell, practically the whole State of Washington was on fire from what we’d heard. But what if this creek was fed by glacial melt and August when it was at its highest?

By the time we got to the creek, I’d worked myself into a complete state of anxiety. It didn’t help that we could hear the water long before we could see it. With each step leading up to the crossing, I became more and more convinced I was probably going to be swept downstream and into Hyas Lake far below.

Popping out of the brush, I could’ve burst out laughing. My big scary crossing was through an eight foot wide, calf-deep stream that worked its way through a tangle of boulders in a narrow avalanche chute. Where the trail crossed, someone had placed a mess of small logs and rocks. I’m sure during spring runoff the water roared down the chute with the ferocity of a lion, but in August it was as tame as a kitten. Three steps and I was on the far bank.

The good thing about mentally working yourself into a heightened state of anxiety over an imaginary situation is the feeling of euphoria you get when it doesn’t happen. On the far side of that little stream, I felt more alive than I had in days, maybe even weeks. Thank you adrenaline!

Funny how it isn’t the stuff you worry about that ends up getting you in the end. Instead, it’s the unpredictable stuff you could never possibly imagine that nearly kills you. Like for instance when the Air Force nearly caused me to have a heart attack and drop dead three miles further up the trail.

We’d just stopped for lunch, and I was admiring a massive conk fungus growing on the side of an old growth tree when suddenly the ground began to shake, and a sound like a freight-train reverberated off the mountains around us. I’d been so lost in thought, and the sound was so out of place, I was sure the world was coming to an end.

“What the hell is happening?” I yelled, instinctively ducking for cover behind Bearclaw.

Bearclaw and Krav watched silently as two fighter jets roared overhead, then turned to look at me as if I’d lost my damned mind. Embarrassed, I cussed out the Air Force for sneaking up on me unprovoked, then sat down to lunch.

Imaginary drowning and being attacked by the Air Force in one morning was too much for me. Out of energy, the afternoon dragged on as we walked through the woods on our way up to the tranquil shores of Deception Lake. Deception Lake was heaven on earth. Deep, green and completely enveloped in a serene pine forest. While Krav opted to use the energy he had to power to the top of Piper Pass, Bearclaw and I lounged in the shade of the trees closest to the shoreline for as long as we could. Bearclaw tried to convince me to go for a swim, but I didn’t have enough energy left to worry about lake monsters.

We stopped again at the top of the pass to admire the view of Glacier Lake far below. Noticeably lacking glaciers, or views of glaciers, or hard packed snow of any kind, Glacier Lake was not at all what I had expected. On the far side of the lake, I could see the remnants of the old Cascade Crest Trail hugging the talus slopes. I wished we were staying high, instead of dropping down to the lake and then having to climb up the switchbacks on the far side. I was too tired for switchbacks.

Getting late in the day, we stopped near a spring at the bottom of our last climb and ate an early dinner in the middle of the trail. While we were eating, two groups of hikers passed by. The first was a group of five weekend warriors. They looked annoyed and exhausted as we tucked our legs in to let them pass. The second group was two through-hikers, FluffyStar and Monk. They were quite taken by our choice of dinner locations. After all, we had clean water that didn’t need to be filtered and a flat place to set our stoves.

Concerned we were all headed for the same campsite; we asked what their destination was for the evening. FluffyStar could not contain her excitement as she told us they were going to push on for eight more miles because she had read on her map that Mig Lake had an outhouse.

Eight miles, for an outhouse? I wouldn’t have walked eight miles for a hamburger. In fact, I doubted I had the three more we needed to get to camp. How could I possibly be this exhausted after only four days?

I slowly crawled up the switchbacks on the far side of Glacier Lake, lagging further and further behind the boys. Two miles from camp, we circled a magnificent lake nestled into the bottom of an alpine bowl. Oh, how I wanted to stop and camp at that little lake. But alas, it was a good two-hundred and fifty feet below the trail, and I was too tired to veer that far off course. Besides, I could see two tents near the outlet, and if I climbed all the way down there only to discover there were no more campsites, I’d have to climb all the way back up.

A mile and a half later, we stumbled into a small meadow with a babbling brook. Grateful we’d already eaten dinner, I fell asleep to the shrill “peeps” of our pica neighbors, happy to have survived another day on the trail.

Looking Back @ Cathedral Peak
Looking Back @ Cathedral Peak
Deception Lake
Deception Lake
Glacier Lake
Glacier Lake
Meadow Camp
Meadow Camp
Snoqualmie Pass to Ridge Lake

Snoqualmie Pass to Ridge Lake

by | Aug 1, 2015 | Hikertrash Cont...Part 2, Pacific Crest Trail

Saturday, August 1, 2015
Day 1: Snoqualmie Pass to Ridge Lake
Miles: 7.48
Total Miles: 2,397.98
Miles to Go: 268.25

“Are you guys excited?” My friend Tree asked as she drove us up to Snoqualmie Pass from her parent’s house in Ellensburg.

Truthfully, I was exhausted and stressed. Two nights of little-to-no sleep and I was a barely functioning human being. Mentally, I was still at work. Did I remember to send out that last email to let everyone know I had no intentions of working for the next three weeks? What if there was a catastrophic failure in a client’s auto-campaign while I was gone that brought down Facebook and society as we knew it? Ha! Who was I kidding, I didn’t even remotely have that kind of power! Most days I congratulated myself just for being at my desk by eight with my underwear on the inside of my pants. Still, I didn’t even have my laptop with me. I felt naked and vulnerable.

I was also nervous. Could we hike eighteen miles a day? Our “training” had involved two weekend backpack trips and three whole visits to the gym, where I’d spent thirty minutes pretending I remembered how to swim laps. Next to the lane of Master’s Swim Club members torpedoing across the length of the pool, I’d had all the grace and stamina of a giraffe caught up in a flash flood. Oh well, as Bearclaw liked to say, “Nothing gets you in shape for backing, except backpacking.”

Speaking of backpacking, I’d packed our backpacks in less than an hour because there just hadn’t been enough time. I hoped I hadn’t forgotten something important. During the entire drive to Ellensburg, I’d been going over it in my mind. Tent? Check. Sleeping bags? Check. Sleeping pads? Check. When I got to the end of the list, I would start all over again. I was driving myself insane. What I needed was to disconnect, to decompress.

And then, it dawned on me; we were headed back to the trail! In less than an hour, we would be at home in nature, and virtually nothing I was currently stressed about would matter. My entire life was about to be pared back to the essentials – food, water, shelter. The trail was about to kick my ass in the best possible way and remind me what was really important.

“Where are you supposed to be meeting your friend Krav?” Tree asked as she pulled into the parking lot of the only gas station in town.

“Just look for a tall skinny guy with dark hair and no beard,” I responded. Krav had started a week before us, picking up at the Snowgrass trailhead where snow had forced us to get off the trail in 2013. As Bearclaw and I had already hiked that section last summer, we’d told him we would meet him in Snoqualmie.

Snoqualmie Pass was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it village; there were only a few places he could be. My bet was he was at one of the only three eateries in town. What would it be like hiking with Krav after so much time had passed? Was he the same guy? How much had he changed? How long would it take him to be like, “Oh my God, I hiked with these people for how many months?”

We found him sitting at the thru-hiker table at the Aardvark. He walked over and gave us a huge hug. His once jet-black hair was now a deep shade of chestnut brown, but other than that, he appeared to be the same old Krav.

As Krav unpackaged his Snoqualmie resupply box, he filled Bearclaw and me in on the last hundred and twenty miles he’d hiked.

“Two nights ago, I was listening to some music while setting up my tent in the dark when I started to feel like I wasn’t alone. I looked left, nothing. Looked right, nothing. Looked back to the left and all I could see in the light of my headlamp were a cougar’s head and eyes. He was just staring at me.”

“Really? Crazy… What did you do?”

“Dove into my tent and started yelling until it went away.” Krav smiled. God, how I’d missed this guy!

“It’s too bad Bearcat couldn’t be here.” He sighed. We all agreed.

By the time Krav had eaten brunch and was packed up and ready to go, it was early afternoon. We pulled out the maps, decided that if we could make it eight miles to the top of the climb out of Snoqualmie, we would be doing good, and hit the trail.

“Where is the trail from here anyway?” Bearclaw asked as we headed down the side of the highway.

I pulled out my Halfmile App.

“We are at PCT mile 2,390.64,” I responded giddily.

“You’ve missed that, haven’t you?” Bearclaw smiled, shaking his head in amusement at the obvious joy I was getting from consulting my GPS.

Had I ever! But not for reasons you, or he, might think. My love of maps and miles had nothing to do with my anal retentive need to keep us on schedule, or even a desire to know where I was. It was deeper than that. In front of me, two hundred and seventy miles of trail lay at my feet. Behind me, the trail stretched out over horizon-after-distant-horizon, all the way to Mexico. With that knowledge, came a great sense of freedom.

On weekends, when we hiked out-and-backs and loops, there were always a finite number of miles, a foreseeable end. This loop was sixteen miles; that loop was twenty. We always ended up precisely where we started, right back at the car. Not on a long trail, not on the PCT. On the PCT, we could hike for months and never reach our destination, and even if we did, we could always just turn around and hike back. There was absolutely nothing stopping me but my own fear and insecurities. Oh, and inevitably running out of money. For some reason, this thought put me in a complete state of Zen.

At the trailhead sign where the PCT diverged from the highway, we stopped for a few quick, “We’re back!” photos before excitedly ducking into the forest. We were back on the PCT!

The excitement wore off approximately three switchbacks in when my calves and thighs began to burn. We needed to gain 2,40O feet of elevation over the next seven miles? Ughhh… I probably should have made time for a fourth trip to the gym.

“We must have gone at least a mile and gained five hundred feet.” I thought, stopping to catch my breath and consult Halfmile. Or, you know, just a third of a mile and two hundred feet. This was going to be a long, slow, painful, ass-kicking.

A few miles in, the trail entered a talus-filled clearing, where I happily stopped to snap photos of a snowcapped Mount Saint Helen’s trying hard to still be visible through the smoky haze.

“You guys picked the hottest time of the day to climb this mountain, didn’t you?” A girl with long dreadlocks smiled happily as she and a friend breezed by us on their way back to town.

Fond memories of hellishly hot climbs out of Wrightwood, Cajon Pass, Castle Crag, Belden, Sierra City, Saied Valley, and Crater Lake, came flooding back to me. We did seem to have an uncanny knack for waiting until the hottest part of the day to climb. Were we sadists or did we just like getting sweaty and stinky? I’d already caught a whiff of my armpits, and I was well on my way to sporting a scent I like to refer to as “Eau du Hikertrash.” I am such a classy lady.

“Yeah, we have a tendency to do this kind of thing a lot.” I sighed.

As they passed by, I tried to spare their nostrils by keeping my elbows glued to my sides. I looked like a T-Rex, holding trekking poles.

Nearly to the top of the climb, I sadly realized that even though we’d been hiking for hours, I’d barely paid any attention to the trail. Instead, I’d been making a list of things I needed to do when I got back to work and prioritizing it for efficiency. No matter how hard I tried to turn it off, I couldn’t. It was as if the constant buzz of the I-90, echoing off the steep mountains around us, was tethering me to reality.

Eventually, the trail leveled out as it wrapped around a smooth rock ledge, passed over a short ridge, and promptly ducked behind a thick rock shelf. Just like that, the persistent din of traffic speeding towards Seattle, and all my anxiety was gone. I was officially on the trail.

“Do you hear that?” I asked Bearclaw.

“Hear what?” He asked, pausing a moment to listen.

“Silence,” I responded, closing my eyes and reveling in it.

We finally arrived at Ridge Lake around six, shocked to discover there were already fifty or so tents crammed into every campsite available. Every side trail we went up led to another tent. It took a lot of searching, but we finally found the last spot: a meadowy patch of grass, just big enough for two tents, hanging high above the serene lake.

Using the last bit of energy we had, we made our way down to the lakeshore for water. The lake was easily two feet lower than normal. Working our way through a muddy flat, we made our way to the rocks that lined the far side of the lake.

“Be careful when you waddle over here that you don’t fall in the lake Hummingbird,” Krav advised as he watched me work my way towards the spot he and Bearclaw had found to sit and filter water.

“Waddle? Did you just say waddle?” I asked indignantly. “That doesn’t have very nice connotations you know…”

“Well, you do kind of waddle.” He replied with a cocky grin.

Aww, I preferred to think of it as more of an ‘out-of-shape hiker shuffle.’

“Hey man, I am a Hummingbird, not a Penguin.” If I hadn’t used what little energy I’d had to waddle down to the lake to get water, I would have gone the extra four feet and pushed him in. But as it was, my hips and my feet were too sore. So instead, I filled up my Camelback and waddled back up the hill to bed.

Reunited!
Reunited!
Over the Talus and into the Woods...
Over the Talus and into the Woods…
The Wall that Blocked out the World
The Wall that Blocked out the World
Ridge Lake
Ridge Lake
Mile 2,365.2 to Mile 2,380.6

Mile 2,365.2 to Mile 2,380.6

by | Aug 21, 2014 | Hikertrash Cont... Part 1, Pacific Crest Trail

Thursday, August 21, 2014
Day 7: Mile 2,365.2 to Mile 2,380.6
Miles: 15.4
Miles to Go: 21.4

The weather was perfect for hiking. There was barely a cloud in the sky as we packed up and left our campsite in the huckleberry patch and by the time we were halfway up the climb to Blowout Mountain, it was warm enough to stop and pull off our jackets. The views were spectacular, behind us Mount Rainer was still visible, though it was much further away than it had been three days earlier. Ahead, we could see a series of jagged peaks, jutting into the sky like a row of wolf’s teeth.

“You think those mountains are in Glacier National Park or is Glacier still too far away?” I asked Bearclaw.

“It’s probably the Cascades on the far side of Snoqualmie. I bet the PCT goes right through them. They look freakin’ spectacular.” He answered.

It turned out Bearclaw was right. I’d read somewhere that you can see nearly a hundred peaks from Blowout Mountain. The ones we happened to be looking at were likely some combination of Mount Stewart, Mount Daniel, Overcoat Peak, Bears Breast Peak and Chimney Rock. I didn’t really care what they were called; I just wanted to see them up close. Our desire to get off trail in Snoqualmie had started out at zero. Now that we were closer, it was even less than that.

Along the ridgeline at the top of Blowout Peak, we ran into a thru hiker in his late forties. Within five minutes, he had explained to us that he was aiming for a forty mile day so that he could be in Snoqualmie before the bars closed because he was in desperate need of a drink. He had been granted time off from work to deal with his alcoholism and figured the trail was as good a place as any to sober up. His tactics were simple, he would binge drink at resupply points, then hit the trail dry and maintain sobriety on all the days in between. He admitted that this didn’t work all that well in Southern California, where resupply points were close together. The further north he went, however, the farther apart his opportunities to drink became and at this point, he was spending a lot more time sober than he was drunk. By the end of the trail, he was hoping to have fully recovered. Personally, I was having a hard time deciding if this was the craziest thing I’d ever heard or the most genius. At the end of the day, my opinion was of no consequence, as long as it worked for him, that was all that really mattered.

He had barely finished his story when a Sobo joined us. A professional truck driver and mother in her mid-thirties, she’d recently read “Wild” and was south-bounding Washington State in the hopes of having her own epiphany. To say she was abrasive and opinionated would be putting it mildly. She went off on a tangent about how every other thru-hiker she had met on the trail had been a complete idiot and how the State of Washington should issue more bear permits to completely annihilate the bear population.

Her rant reminded me of something my mentor Gloria used to say. If you consistently have the same problem with people or you find the same fault in everyone you meet, the problem isn’t them—the problem is you, as you’re the only common denominator. In my own life, this advice had proven true time and time again. I thought briefly about sharing Gloria’s words of wisdom because I knew for a fact that every other thru-hiker on the trail wasn’t a complete idiot, but I had a feeling this wouldn’t be well received. She wasn’t a lot bigger than me, but she was feisty, and I was a ninety percent sure she would respond by punching me in the face. Instead, I crammed berry after berry in my mouth until it was so full that I looked like a chipmunk and the words that wanted to come out, simply couldn’t.

When she asked the NoBo about water sources up the trail and then explained to him why he was wrong, even though he had just come from that direction, Bearclaw and I decided it was time to split. Wishing them both the best, we hastily made our exit.

When I try to come up with descriptive words to describe the rest of our day, the word boring comes to mind, but that denotes that we weren’t doing anything and we were, we were hiking. Maybe underwhelming and lackluster are better adjectives.

The trail wandered in and out of overgrown clear cuts and second growth until about a mile before Tacoma Pass, where it finally entered an old growth forest. Bearclaw and I wandered off trail only once, to collect water from a coursing spring that bubbled out of the hillside and wound its way through the trees.

The only other noteworthy things we saw were a lovely little campsite next to trickling creek just past Sheets Pass and the expansive views up the valley from the backside of Bearpaw Butte.

Around three, we finally made it to what was marked on our map as “spring, spongy ground.” With nowhere flat to camp, we walked another quarter mile until the PCT crossed a disused forest service road.

“How about this? It’s flat.” Bearclaw asked.

“It’ll do.”

The road was relatively flat, so with numerous options as to where to set up, the only real question was fly or no fly? The sky, mostly blue with a few massive grey clouds accumulating on the horizon, looked like it could go either way. We set up without it and tucked it next to the tent just in case.

If it hadn’t been for “Walden”, I may have died of boredom waiting for bedtime…

Mount Rainier
Mount Rainier
The Cascades?
The Cascades?
What Were These Peaks?
What Were These Peaks?
Was the PCT Headed Here?
Was the PCT Headed Here?
Snowgrass to Hidden Springs Jct.

Snowgrass to Hidden Springs Jct.

by | Aug 15, 2014 | Hikertrash Cont... Part 1, Pacific Crest Trail

Friday, August 15, 2014
Day 1: Snowgrass Trailhead to Hidden Spring Trail Junction (2284.2)
Miles: 17
Miles to Go: 117.8

“Woah… How did you escape the sixties intact?”

We were raiding the grocery store for a quick and easy breakfast we could eat on our way to the trailhead when Trenchstar caught the attention of an old hippie. Dusty, Bearclaw and I stifled a giggle as Trench tried to explain to his new friend that he had unfortunately missed the sixties by at least a decade.

The hippie didn’t believe him for one second. He went on about LSD and 60’s music as if Trenchstar had time warped out of 1968 earlier in the morning and landed right smack dab in the middle of the grocery store. Looking at Trenchstar, an amused smile on my face, I could totally see the confusion. With his chest-length, curly black hair and his thick mustache, he had the timeless look of a philosopher-poet. Slap some bell-bottoms, a paisley printed dress shirt and a tasseled leather jacket on him, add a guitar and a flower garland for good measure, and you’d have yourself a bona fide hippie. We laughed about this all the way to the trailhead.

Snowgrass Trail #96 was a lot steeper than I remembered it being, or maybe I was just super out-of-shape. Either way, I was happy for the bumper-crop of blueberries that lined the trail because it gave me an excuse to stop every hundred and fifty feet to catch my breath. I mean, pick blueberries. Yeah, that! Fistful after blue fistful, we made our way up the mountainside.

Eventually, the trail led out of the forest and into brilliant green meadows brimming with wildflowers— orange Indian paintbrushes blended flawlessly with purple alpine lupine and white yarrow. All this was punctuated by puffy, ivory colored flowers that looked like truffula trees from Dr. Suess’ The Lorax.
None of it looked familiar, and it wasn’t until we stumbled upon a familiar sign, that I realized why. The last time we’d been here the entire meadow was buried under half a foot of snow. This was the meadow that enveloped the PCT at the Snowgrass Junction!

“I’M ON THE PCT!” I yelled in an ode to the Aussie we’d met back on our first day out of Campo. And then, in true hiker fashion, we plopped down under the sign for a snack.

“You think those guys are thru-hikers?” Bearclaw asked watching two northbound hikers headed up the trail towards us.

There was no doubt about it. Their smooth, long gait and perfect foot placement reeked of a oneness with the trail that only comes from hiking long distances. Not to mention the fact that they were hauling-ass. We were only twenty miles from White Pass. Today was definitely a town day for them; pizza was calling.

Within minutes, they’d spanned the gap between the edge of the meadow and us. They didn’t speak much English, just enough to let us know that they were German thru-hikers. They were so lean and fit; they probably could have snapped the head off a grizzly bear with their thighs. I wondered with a twinge of jealousy and sadness if that was how we’d looked by the time we’d arrived in Washington.

They gratefully accepted an apple and a handful of gummy worms, which they devoured in two bites and then, in the blink of an eye, they were gone, up and over Old Snowy.

Excited to finally be home, we packed up and eagerly set off up the trail behind them. I was 97% sure Old Snowy hated me. The higher up the mountain we climbed, the worse the weather became. It wasn’t a blinding snowstorm, as it had been the previous fall, but it was nearly as cold, and by the time we reached the Junction of the Packwood Glacier pack animal trail and the Official PCT, the clouds were kissing the hard packed snow.

Last summer, after they had gotten off the trail in Independence, Trenchstar had sectioned hiked from the Bridge of the God’s on the Washington/ Oregon border to Snoqualmie. Standing at the junction marker, he warned us that the last time he’d been there he’d gone up and over on the official trail and it was scary as hell. This year there was more snow. He also knew I would absolutely hate it, since my fear of heights rivals my fear of butterflies. He thought it would be in our best interest to try the pack route over the glacier.

The glacier hung steeply on the side of Old Snowy, though it was impossible to see more than thirty feet in any direction with all the cloud and fog. I wasn’t sure what was worse: being able to see the crazy steep drop-off that undoubtedly lay to my left, or letting my imagination decided what was behind the solid grey wall of fog. Trenchstar, Dusty, and Bearclaw led the way, with Bearclaw stopping to kick bigger steps into the slick ice and snow for me as he went. Stopping behind him at one particularly treacherous spot, the clouds parted for a brief moment, and I could see all the way down to the bottom of the glacier and over the cliff below it. Oh. My. God. Even my vivid imagination hadn’t been able to conjure up something that scary. My heart stopped beating for a good thirty seconds. My head began to spin. My knees began to shake. Maybe Old Snowy didn’t hate me after all; maybe it was saving me from being scared to death.

“Ahh! Cover it back up! I don’t want to see anymore!” I closed my eyes and pleaded. Opening my eyes, the thick grey clouds had answered me, and I was back to thirty feet of visibility. Ignorance truly is bliss.

No one had really mentioned the glacier would be scary. They always skipped that and went right on to describe the Knife’s Edge, the razor-sharp ridge-walk that followed immediately after you made it over Old Snowy alive. I wasn’t sure I could handle anything scarier than the glacier. Since we’d gotten off the trail, I’d sort of continued eating a hikertrash diet. My arteries were too constricted for scarier. I would almost certainly have a heart attack. Damn it! I’d always assumed if one of my fears were going to kill me, it would be death by moths.

Going over the glacier I had all the time in the world to turn the Knife’s Edge into the most foreboding and terrifying trail in the Universe. When we finally arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. The trail itself was wide and smooth in comparison to where we had just come from, and the views were cleverly hidden behind a curtain of mist. They parted only once— to reveal a mountain goat happily devouring grass alongside a scree field.

A few miles up the trail, the clouds began to break, and by the time we reached Elk Pass, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Behind us, Old Snowy stood tall and defiant. Ahead, Mount Rainer sparkled under a flawless blue sky. The trail hadn’t lost any of its magic.

We’d been aiming for Shoe Lake, but the hike up Snowgrass and across Old Snowy had kicked our asses. By late afternoon, we decided on taking the first campsite available. Lutz Lake was full with a camp of exhausted thru-hikers lying on the ground outside of their tents. Tieton Pass was too small. Wearily, we continued on until we found a site big enough for two tents near the junction to Hidden Spring.

“Hot sauce is good with you guys, right?” Bearclaw asked as he unscrewed the lid from a fresh bottle of Frank’s. Getting the go-ahead from Dusty and Trench, he doused the pot of Smoky Mountain Paella in a healthy amount of hot sauce. Trenchstar laughed.

“I’d almost forgotten how much hot sauce you guys dump on everything! Whenever you guys borrowed our hot sauce on the trail, you’d use like half the bottle. It was kind of a point of contention.”

“Really?!” Bearclaw asked shocked, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

Trenchstar shrugged. “I guess we just liked hiking with you guys more than we liked the hot sauce.”
 

 

Smokey Mountain Paella

2 ½ cups water
1 Tbsp. olive oil
1 package of dried Spanish rice mix (5.6 oz.)
½ cup sundried tomatoes, diced
1 can smoked oysters, with juice (3.75 oz.)
1 foil pouch shrimp, with juice
1 foil pouch diced chicken
1/8 tsp. crushed red pepper
1/8 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried garlic
1 tsp. oregano

Instructions: I like to mix the diced sun-dried tomatoes, red pepper flakes, black pepper, dried garlic, and oregano together with the rice in a Ziploc bag before we head out on the trail, to help reduce weight and trail prep time.

At camp: Add rice, spices and olive oil to water and boil until rice is tender. (You can reduce cooking time by pre-soaking the rice for an hour or two.) When rice reaches desired doneness, add oysters (including juice), shrimp (including juice) and chicken. Douse in a healthy amount of a friend’s hot sauce and eat while hot.

Reunited with the Trail
Reunited with the Trail
The Knife's Edge
The Knife’s Edge
In the Misty Shadow of Old Snowy
In the Misty Shadow of Old Snowy
Trufala Trees Near the Snowgrass Trail
Trufala Trees Near the Snowgrass Trail