[pct-l] Best time to hike washington

[Brian Lewis]

 Jalan jalan asked when it's best to hike Washington, and Dicentra replied:
"July 5th through early/mid September sometime", and she went on to add that
there are two seasons in Seattle ... "August and Rain."

For reasonable (not too much snow) backpacking times of year I would
generally agree with the above, with a caveat about bugs.  Along the PCT in
WA state my general rule of thumb is that July is buggy and August &
September are nice (with the latter getting a bit colder and of course
decreasing length of daylight).  August is generally a great time to get
huckleberries and wild blueberries too.  Of course this is approximate, and
this stuff varies by the year --- snow melted later than usual last year,
which impacted both of these factors.

Two years ago I did a fair bit of hiking in July, and what I found was that
in places I enjoy hiking in August there were a lot of pools and mostly
melted snow around, perfect breeding grounds for the mosquitos that were all
about me.   You can get some great wildflowers in July, however, and I'm not
suggesting that all of WA state is a continuous bug feeding frenzy for the
entire month, but all things being equal --- pick August.


Brian Lewis / Gadget '08
http://postholer.com/brianle