Day 146: Mile 2321.6 - 2344.1

If yesterday was a small day, today was supposed to be a big day.

I woke to a windy windy morning. Enough so that, when I unzipped just the upper part of my inner tent door, and the wind whipped through, I still got twigs and dirt in the tent! Neither Apocalypse nor I wanted to get out of our tents: it had rained the night before--just sprinkles but rain nonetheless--and now the wind was whipping through the tents even though we were camped among trees, and the inside of my tent was just illuminated a bland gray. But eventually I finished packing up and went outside and was treated to a revelation. It was beautiful! The smoke from yesterday had gone, replaced by big fat clouds, still heavy with potential rain, but moving so fast out to the south and east. All above a lake that I could now see, its waters whipped up by the wind, but when the sun would peek out from behind the running clouds and form that shimmering path across the water: oh, but it was very nice! 

I got started late--about 8:30am--but still before Apocalypse who, when he finally got out of his tent, said, wait, so this is what you've been enjoying the past 15 minutes? And then promptly got his camera out to start filming. My ankle was feeling a bit better this morning, but the initial climb out of Dewey Lake was still tough. Luckily, it had good views of the lake and valley behind, especially in the early morning with the clouds still racing overhead.

The trail would crest over a ridge and then start its descent to Chinook Pass, and here is where the Washington started showing off again. Just the colors!--here, the brushy plants dominated, and they're the ones with all the colors: green and yellow, sure, but turning orange and red all over the slopes. There was even a spot with a little pond off to the side, shallow but still so beautifully turquoise, with a short but pristine beach broken only by singular rocks placed with the most delicious zen. It was so pretty I didn't want to disturb it, but only photographed it from afar!

The trail descended down to Chinook Pass, a popular trailhead for folks heading up to get views of Mount Rainier, and let me just say that the pass itself was impressive. Chinook Pass is a long, large valley: big and broad, it just goes and goes, shoulder after shoulder after shoulder of mountain, dropping down on both sides, all along a long line. The trail actually follows the pass for a while, and here I felt it became very southern California. Which is a good thing: southern California hikes hearken me back to my Saturday hikes, hikes without a care in the world besides getting from here to there, the only time being now, the only thoughts like waves passing through the mind but the water being fundamentally unmoved (and, yes, that's Shunryu Suzuki's beautiful metaphor, not mine!). Sure, southern California hikes are hot and exposed and often on shelf trails cut into slopes, but for me they're comfortable and reassuring, and that's a Good Thing.

After following above Highway 410 and Chinook Pass for a while, the trail takes a left turn, heading into the mountains and to Sheep Lake. And this was another revelation. Not that far from the trailhead, Sheep Lake is a beautiful lake surrounded by tall tall mountains, the slopes covered in color, their tops mounted in granite. There were a couple of fly fishermen at the lake, and some more day hikers came up even as I took a break at the lake to get and filter water, to charge some batteries, and to shed some base weight behind one of the many established campsites dotting the southern shore.

From here, the trail began its theme for the day, which was shelf-trail to ridge-trail to saddle-crossing, then back to shelf-trail. And repeat. A lot of being high up, either at the top of the ridge or close to it, crossing from this valley to that valley. And always, to the east, the Schneider Fire looming, its smoke cloud an ever evolving thing, a bit different every time I would see it, but ever tall, its top reaching into white-cloud territory. And always, to the west, Mount Rainier, stolid and unmoving, the clouds drifting before its calm faces. And Mount Rainier felt so close!: I could see its canyons and ridges, its glaciers and stone cliffs, and automatically my mind began plotting approaches to the top!

The shelf-ridge-saddle section eventually entered a burn zone, and this became the head-down-and-hike portion of the day. I had mentioned today was supposed to be a big day: that had been the plan. Well, the day was getting long in the tooth and the odometer was staying pretty small and trim, so now it was time to go. And being in a burn zone, traversing mostly nondescript hills--no more views of Rainier to the west, unfortunately; plenty of views of the Schneider Fire to the east--I tried to build up some momentum. Which consists of getting into a rhythm and hiking without stopping to take so many photos. And it would have worked, too, if not for the fact that my stomach started acting up.

This had happened before, I remember it happening around Crater Lake, I remember it happening outside Seiad Valley. I have a certain degree of lactose intolerance, and this is very similar to what happens when I eat too much dairy by mistatke. And in real life it's not as bad--it's more inconvenient than anything--but out here, I end up digging a lot of catholes and that takes a lot of time. And I'm going through this burn zone, and now it's getting late, and I'm telling my stomach, look, I can't camp in this burn zone, it's all dead trees that I can hear creaking in the wind *right* *now*. I don't want to hear how much they creak, and then snap, in the night if it gets windy! We need to get through this section (which would turn out to be about 12 miles long--the vestiges of the Norse Peak Fire). And my stomach would reply, hey, I don't know anything about no burn zone or no dead trees. All I know is to somehow managed to put a pretty precocious concoction in here, and the chemistry is going pretty good. I mean, I'm just following the science, man, just following the science. Oh, and yeah, you better dig a cathole in about 5 minutes. So that was a fun time: trying to push through the burn zone before dark, while having to stop to dig catholes.

And I would not make it. Would have to pull out the headlamp and hike the last mile and a half of the burn zone in the dark. At least I did get to see the skyline of the mountain range to the north in the fading light, and it looked stunning: peak after peak after peak formed a jagged uneven sawtooth of stone, nothing like the smooth curves we get in southern California. But I did finally find camp, and saw that there was another tent already set up and dark (meaning the folks in it were probably already asleep), and tried my best to set up and cook as quietly as possible. And, in the end, I did manage to get in my big day, did manage to get in the 20+ miles, but next time, let's try to avoid hiking in the dark!

And that was the hike!

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Some notes:

-- Dewey Lake > Chinook Pass (Highway 410) > Sheep Lake > Bullion Basin Junction > Norse Peak > Seasonal Stream > Louisiana Saddle

-- We knew that it was going to rain last night: the forecast had called for 20-30% chance of thunderstorms. So I, for example, had intentionally set up on a slant just above a really good, flat spot: the reasoning being that if it *did* rain, the rain would flow down to the nominally good spot and pool over there, rather than under my tent!

-- At Chinook Pass the trail crosses a pedestrian bridge over Highway 410, and on the bridge was a group of older ladies--I think they're a hiking club. And they were waving at the cars passing beneath, and the cars were often honking as they passed, and one of the ladies laughed and said, I feel like I'm in a parade! But one of the ladies asked me, where are you coming from. Campo, I said, and when she looked puzzled, Mexico. Oh, she said, recognition dawning in her eyes. And when do you think you're going to finish? September 20-something, I said. Good luck!, she said. And as another passed she said, would you like a homemade cookie? Are you really offering me a homemade cookie, I replied, incredulous. Yes, she said, pulling one out. They're gluten free!, one of her compatriots chimed in. And I ate it as I walked past the bridge and along Chinook Pass, and lo, but it *was* good, with a slight gingery taste that I quite Liked, and I was Happy.

-- There are public restrooms at Chinook Pass, about 0.1 miles down from the trail--you take a switchbacking side trail to get to them. And there had been rumors that they were closed, and I saw signs on the doors but couldn't read them. So I took a photo of the doors, then zoomed in on the photo to read the signs. "Closed", they said. Well, nuts. But that's hiker trash right there: I'm willing to walk 2000+ miles from Mexico to get here, but ask me to walk 0.1 miles to bathrooms that may or may not be closed, and I balk: I'm not going down there unless I *know* they're open!

-- There are these crickets--or are they grasshoppers?--in the mountains that I've been bumping into since, gosh, since Big Bear I want to say. And they make this distinctive flapping noise when they jump-fly, and until now I haven't been able to describe it. But today I realized: they sound like those sprinklers that, when the sprinkler spins one way, go clack clack clack at a regular rhythm, then go clackety-clackety-clackety-clackety-clackety in quick-fire sucession when the spinkler spins the other way. *That's* what they sound like--slow then fast!

-- There *is* one difference between southern California shelf-ridge-saddle trails and Washington shelf-ridge-saddle trails: in southern California, the breezes are cool, whereas in Washington, the breezes are chilly, even in the afternoon. Which is fine as long as you're moving, but if you stop, it can get cold even with the sun out. But maybe in Washington it's just a harbringer: winter is coming!

-- And during the shelf-ridge-saddle section today, I looked out to the east and actually saw what looked like two fires: a larger, nearer one with seemingly new smoke and the every-changing colors and shapes, and a smaller, farther one that looked older, almost smoldering. I'm guessing that they're both the Schneider Springs fire, perhaps two different edges of it, burning away. But, yeah, that's a lot of fire, and a lot of smoke going up!

-- During the shelf-ridge-saddle section, I came across a guy just sitting along the shelf trail, with his dog. And I looked at his pack and saw it was external frame, with a big red sack tied to it, and a rifle pointing out of the sack. And I got to talking to him and it turns out he's a hunter, hunting bears. Have you seen any bears?, he asked. Well I've seen two, but one was in northern California and the other was in the Sierras. And he laughed at that. He was in a good spot for seeing bears evidently: high enough that he could see them roaming about the slopes below as, evidently, they were wont to do. Although this spot did have a problem: if he shot a bear here, he'd have to haul it uphill to get back to the trailhead. So he was going to move over and hunt around that ridge over there, where it would at least be just a downhill slog down to the trailhead. Because he'd need multiple trips to get the whole bear down! Anyway, he was a very nice guy, plenty of questions about the PCT which I tried my best to answer. In the end, as I left, he told me, if you see any bears up there, tell them to hold tight, there's someone real friendly coming along, and that got a good laugh out of me!

-- One of the questions the hunter asked was: is it something like you go two weeks without seeing anybody? And the answer to that was no, not really. The SOBOs had mentioned that on occasion--one had said he went two days without seeing another person--but for us NOBOs, I never get the feeling of being truly isolated. For example, as I told the hunter, I know there's a hiker in front of me (J-Pro), and I know there's a hiker behind me (Apocalypse), both probably anywhere from a few hours to half a day distant. And I've always felt on the PCT that, if I were to just sit and wait for a while, eventually another thru-hiker would come along. That's different than some of my hikes in Cleveland National Forest, for example, where I felt if I were to sit and wait, maybe someone might come along, but it would be a day or two!

-- I should say that I love hiking in the dark when day-hiking: I can still remember climbing up out of Wildomar towards Elsinore Peak in the dark, and looking back at all the little lights in the valleys of Murietta. But when thru-hiking, not so much. Because whereas when day-hiking I just have to find my car, when thru-hiking I have to set up camp. And I have to *find* camp, which isn't always so obvious: this campsite, for example, is just some flat spots between the trees in the woods. Camping in general is just much easier to do in the light! So day-hiking is more forgiving that way, I can get away with a lot more--I wouldn't say risky, maybe just sub-optimal--practices, but when thru-hiking, I try to smooth all those out the best I can. Because risk out here is a lot more risky, and everything needs to be much more sustainable: as I say, it's not whether you can do something *today*, it's whether you can do it *again* *tomorrow*.

-- On a kind of random note, I was thinking about it today and I feel that both J-Pro and Apocalypse will make it to Canada. J-Pro because he has that afterburner: if he wants to break out a 30-mile day, he can. Apocalypse because he has enough devil-may-care attitude (and also enough positivity under the snark), to endure whatever the trail throws at him. These two, they'll make it!

-- Camping cohort: there's another tent over there, and it sounds like there are people in it, but I got in very late--after dark--and have no idea who they are. So I'm not alone--and was paranoid all night making camp, worried I was making too much noise--but I also don't know who I'm with, so, yeah, no names in the camping cohort list tonight!