Day 15-18 (aug 21-24) mile 2395.8-2466.8

 

On day 15 I left Snoqualmie Pass, heading back out into smoky air. I felt the air was just fine to breathe and I didn’t notice any irritation all day. It was a 5 mile climb out of the pass gaining almost 3000 feet. Halfway through the climb a man named Karel Sabbe passed me running up the mountain, and I’ve been following his entire hike online. He is attempting the fastest known time on the pct and he left the Mexican border 42 days ago averaging almost 60 miles a day.  The record is 51 days so he’s well on pace.

At the top of the climb the trail went across a narrow ledge called the Kendall Catwalk. People make it sound like it’s super scary but I didn’t think it was much worse than a lot of other places on trail. The next 10 miles were through the beautiful Alpine Lakes wilderness, but I didn’t take many pictures because it was hard to see the scenery through the smoke. I set up camp at mile 2414.8 for a 20.7 mile day

By the morning of day 16, the smoke had fully cleared, revealing the incredible views of this section. The climbs have been massive with hundreds of switchbacks, and today one up and down basically took all day. I descended down toward  Waptus Lake, the biggest of Washington so far. There was another half of a climb up to the target campsite at mile 2435.6, making for a 20.8 mile day.

In the early morning of day 17 it began to rain. I was slow to get moving from the dry inside of my tent and stuff the soggy tent into my pack. It stayed fairly cold all day with gentle misty rain continuing for the rest of the morning. I came to a sort of tricky water crossing made complicated by all the slippery rocks. I eventually realized after scrambling up and down the bank  of the stream that the right place to cross was a bit more upstream.

There were some incredible views of lakes, and several very very steep climbs. I set up camp at mile 2457.7 for a 22.1 mile day.

On day 18 i only had 7.5 miles to go to Steven’s Pass. The smoke came back a little bit but it wasn’t as bad as the other day. The trail went through the ski lifts on the backside of the resort and then went around the side on the front. All the lifts were running which was pretty cool because mountain bikers ride on the ski slopes in the summer. At the pass I ran into two more hikers that I had met way back in the desert,  and got a ride back home to Everett for a relaxing zero.