[pct-l] Stevens to Snoqualmie

[jjolson at uwyo.edu (Jeff Olson)]

At the end of August, 1998, I hiked the PCT from Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie Pass, 75 miles, in a little less than four days. It was the second trip that summer where I aimed to average 20 miles or so a day. I'd finally gotten my base pack weight down to about 17 pounds, not including food and water. 

Tom drove me to the pass and as I fitted the pack after futzing a bit, watched him drive away. I was alone in the wilderness again, after a three week hiatus (I'd hiked from White to Snoqualmie Pass then). I had a nervous stomach and a hyperawareness of being back in the woods. 

I headed up through the Stevens Pass Ski area, winding through the trees at 8 in the morning, slowly getting my hiking legs back. I topped the rise at the top of the ski area and peered down into the basin with a big power line traversing across to a small lake and a notch. I hiked down past Lake Susan Jane and by lake Josephine. I definitely had my hiking legs on. 

The trail traversed along a ridge with views down to Trapper Creek and a final steep switchback up to Trap Pass. I was starting to feel beat, and it was a real effort hike the last couple hundred yards or so. The pass is really a notch in the trees, and once on the other side, it's back in the trees. Lots of trees and peekaboo views on this segment...

The trail stays above Surprise and Glacier Lakes, switchbacks up Surprise Mountain, and then there is a long forest traverse to the Deception Lakes, where I'd decided I was going to spend the night. The forest is really thick there, and a woman was setting up camp in one of the clear spots, and not wanting to intrude, I continued on. The campsites were all dirt anyway, and in the trees with no views. 

I came to a creek that had a flat spot a hundred yards away and I gratefully set up camp. My body ached, even after 1000 ml. of ibuprofen after lunch that had dimmed the muscle aches and foot pain. Tennis three times a week keeps the aerobics tuned, but hiking muscles had atrophied.  

I lay back in the quiet of the forest and read until dark, very much aware of all the sounds, the jays, the deer later I mistook for a bear. There was no threat of rain so I didn't set up the old North Face tent fly I was using as a tarp, and watched the moon settle over Mt. Daniel off in the distance. This was the night where I realized that I was part of the wilderness, part of the animal's world, and the "big" noises I thought was a bear was merely a part of that world.  There is nothing like laying on a piece of plastic in a sleeping bag in a windless night in the wilderness.  I reached a kind of pinnacle of acceptance and fell asleep a part of the active night.  

The next morning I was up at 6AM and hiking by 6:15. The long traverse through forest continued and I hiked "down" to Deception Pass, which is no more than a forested swale it seemed to me. Himan and Daniel were the major view the previous afternoon and that morning. But after crossing the headwaters of the cle elum river it was more gentle climbing/traversing with views across the canyon to the Robin Lake basin and the peaks above it. Quite a spectacular way to spend a morning. 

The trail crossed a bunch of creeks with no bridges, and it was rock hopping for me. I couldn't imagine crossing a couple of them earlier in the season when they would have been roaring and life would have been in danger. Hyas Lake below and the granite ridge/peaks above became ever more the focus as I traversed through forest and boulder/avalanch fields. 

The trail steepens under Cathedral Rock, and tops out at Cathdral Pass. What a view. And then down a treeless ridge to the outlet of Deep Lake where I had lunch, washed clothes and myself, and spent three hours, napping and reading in the grassy meadow, naked, soaking up the sun. 

This is one of the great joys of hiking, the sybaritic hour or two of pure pleasure lying naked in the sun while clothes dry.  Two guys hiked by 150 yards upstream on the trail, and didn't see me.  I rolled away from them and I pretended to read War and Peace, my book of the trip, as I slipped into a nap, and out again, and in again, and out again.  About the only thing better is doing this with a loved one, making love, and drifting off...  Ahhhhh....  

Refreshed I walked in the heat of the afternoon above Spinola Creek, always out of sight, but not hearing as the guidebook says. Lots of little ups and downs, until a big traversing turn around the ridge base and there was Waptus Lake below, way big and inaccessible, or so it seemed. I didn't want to take time to hike down the couple hundred feet of vertical to visit what looked like a big reservoir, although I don't think it is. 

Just before the bridge that crosses the inlet creek is a big, 40' high rock/dirt dome. I layed out my sleeping bag under a tree on its top, and watched the sun go down behind some absolutely spectacular mountains to the northwest. I think dutch miller gap was up there, but I'm not sure. Again, I didn't need the tarp, so I just lay there and wallowed in the sensuality of being warm with a view that bordered on forcing a religious experience.  

The day's walk had been marked with a theme of hyperalterness, a kind of hypersensitivity.  Even lying next to the creek below Deep Lake I'd been hyper.  Not the ADHD kind of hyper, but the hyperness of settling into a routine in which I wasn't busy like I was in the world.  I was super aware.  Everything was poignant and present.  When I thought about it, time crawled.  When I didn't, it flowed.  BAck and forth, back and forth into the moment, then out of it into my big picture abstracting, and then back again.  

The morning sun was breathtaking, and so rather than eating my granola and rehydrated milk with raisins on the trail, I lay in my sleeping bag and ate breakfast and watched the sun go from pink to golden on the 3000' granite escarpment across the valley.  

The hike up from Waptus Lake to the ridgetop is exposed, and even that time of the morning was hot. I can't imagine doing this in the afternoon when it is hot. 2200' or so to the top, with few trees and a number of blowdowns. I didn't see how a horse could get through there... One of the blowdowns was three feet thick, and the slope was over 45 degrees.  I was powered though.  My breathing was even.  My heart was about 130 beats a minute.  I was hiking a normal pace of two and a half miles an hour.  I was in shape, fueled and watered, and morning strong.  I was in the zone.  This was pretty powerful, and I harkened back to hiking south out of Mono Creek up and up and up, but doing it so quickly, so easily.  That day I wrote a chapter of my dissertation in my head, the structure.  Synapses switching really well...

As I traversed Escondido Ridge I could hear a packer down near Escondido Lake setting up camp in preparation for his paying guests that would begin arriving when hunting season began. I met one party of hikers that said they talked with a packer who had a mule carrying nothing but hard liquor, and another with nothing but beer. Ah, the life of a "guy."  

The hike along Escondido Ridge is stunning. This is top of the world hiking, with the whole southern vista totally open.  Five seconds after leaving the trail to the right and the view north was mesmerizing.  Can't do that too often...  

I took a break in a little meadow and munched down some trailmmix, thinking if I ever wanted to come somewhere close but pristinely beautiful, this was it, with its three foot wide stream meandering through it, backdropped with a 300' cliff. Another little vale of comfort, that would be windless, protected on three sides, open to the south.  

But the most spectacular part of the trip was yet to come. I contined to traverse along the ridge and topped out in the middle of an old fire. There across the way was a picket fence of stark and beautiful peaks that made my eyes water and my heart ache. It was so beautiful I stopped and just stood there for ten minutes or so. I've hiked throughout the Cascades, Sierra from lassen to Whitney, and am now exploring Wyoming and Colorado's mountains. But the view from the top of Escondido Ridge across the Lemah Creek Valley to the peaks rising 3000-4000 across the way is unparalleled. 

The hike down jumps from bench to bench for a while, and then into forest with the views now being tree filtered. I met a couple just getting up after having hiked til 11 the night before in the moonlight. They were in a weird kind of ecstacy, gentle and marvelling. I felt touched by a different force. It could have been a highly developed spirituality or the effects of a morning joint.  

Hiking down the ridge I met some climbers coming back from a climb of one of the peaks. "Guys" are a funny kind of people, hard edges and narrowly focused. That's all I can say about that. 

I also met a couple who are hiking the Washington PCT, but in ten day, 50 mile chunks. They hike five miles a day. Both were very overweight and very jolly, and very sweaty! I met very few people on this trip, but these three parties, all in a row, within an hour of each other, were such great constrasts. Such different views of life, the wilderness and the world... 

I hit the valley bottom and was surrounded with trees. There were lots of campsites in here, but I wasn't ready. I wanted big views this, my last night. The map promised them up around Park lakes. 

So, I hiked at the base of Lemah Mountain, heading for the Three Queens. Views were pretty restricted. I ate lunch at the Lemah Creek Crossing, where there was a well used campsite, but nothing special. 

I hadn't taken a stove on this, or the last trip. I had planned fat/carbs/protein and calories pretty well. I ate constantly - about 5000 calories a day. I lost seven pounds over the four days, and gained three of it back the following week. That's not very good for the system I've been told. 

Dinner was a bag of eastern hand food from one of the bins at the Ballard Market in Seattle. I highly recommend stoveless hiking, for five days or less at least. I found I didn't miss coffee after the first day, and hot food not at all. On the trip from White to Snoqualmie Pass it rained for a couple of the days, but even then, eating constantly made up for the lack of hot food. I never felt in danger. And this trip, with clear skies and warm temperatures, was heaven. 

I started climbing up toward the Pass between Chikamin Peak and the Three queens, and was very weary. it was a nearly 3000' climb, and at the end of the day. I'd already climbed nearly 3000', and I could feel my thighs beginning to quiver. 

But miraculously, and not for the first time in my life, getting higher got me higher. The pain lessened, and I found myself getting a fourth or fifth wind. I reached the trail to Spectacle Lake, but eschewed it for the top of the ridge. The higher I climbed the more spectacular the view became, and the harder it was to just keep hiking. It's switchback after switchback, but the whole lemah creek valley is unfolding, and all the peaks around get more and more visible. 

Finally, in a really herculean effort, I gained the top of the ridge and looked over toward Park lakes, and decided i wanted to watch the sun go down from the top. 

I walked a hundred yards south of the trail along the ridge top and found a fairly level spot where I through my bag down in the grass and got into it. I was a hurtin puppy, but marvelling at what lay below me. I could see Spectacle lake of course, and Glacier Lake in its cirque, and all the mountains marching north. I thought that this was a day of days for views - opposite ends of the same valley, blown away all day long. 

I had a tee shirt for years I wore hiking that said, "The best part about getting high is the view." it was a Grateful Dead tee shirt, and I chuckled to myself as I thought of it. No drugs or alcohol, coffee or any other stimulant other than the wonder at being so high and so privilged to be where I was. 

A young couple was camped at a spot across the saddle from me, the "official wonderful campspot" and I watched them hang out on an outcrop overlooking the whole wonderous world. They added a different kind of texture to the view. 

I woke up the next morning and headed west past the Park Lakes, glad I hadn't stayed there in the basin, with no views. The hike up to Chikamin Pass was pretty, and then to cross over into the Gold Creek Basin, another breathtaking experience that went on and on and on. At what I guess is a place called Huckleberry Saddle you can stare through a gap in the ridge to the north into a basin with Burntboot Creek at its bottom, and it looked wild. No trail down there, but a sense that it would be a spectacular place to hike 

There were people camped down at Joe lake, and again at Alaska Lake. It looked like a good place to go snowshoeing to for a winter wonderland experience. I ate lunch at Ridge Lake and watched the dayhikers stream by, dogs on leashes, clothes fresh and startlingly white. 

On the Snoqualmie Pass side of Kendall Ridge I met a Japanese woman who I hung out with for a while because she was terrified that a bear was going to come out of the trees and get her. Her husband and his friends had gone ahead to the top of the ridge, and she was almost paralyzed with fear. I hung with her for 30 minutes until another woman came and they hugged and the first woman thanked me, tearfully. Back in the world... 

I had a bus to catch at Snoqualmie Summit and made it by an hour. Three or four busses a day stop at the Summit. 

I was down to the pass by about three, and feeling pretty good. I really liked this lightweight  backpacking style. I really liked trail centered, versus camp centered hiking. All I did in camp was sleep. I usually took a couple three hours in the middle of the day to recuperate, wash, and watch the wilderness. Hiking til seven or seven-thirty - it got dark at eight on labor day, and light at six-thirty - made for a full day. I think i see more hiking that way. I'm light on my feet, take lots of breaks, and stop and marvel constantly. I don't feel like a beast of burden. 

This is a tough trip made tougher by doing it in four days. I climbed 6000' or so on the third day. That's a lot, even with a 20 pound pack and running shoes. But the view from the top of Escondido Ridge looking west was beyond spectacular.