Day 152: Mile 2439.5 - 2460.8

So if the pattern holds, today it should be raining. And I woke, and there was sunlight illuminating my tent. And I went outside and not a cloud in the sky. Just the towering spires of Cathedral Rock up above, and I realized in the light that it was an apt name: they do tower right above you, and they have a certain bulk and blockiness to them, yet still a certain soaring elegance, and that resembles cathedrals. I just don't know if, when you look down from below, they make the shape of a cross!

But I got to hiking--downhill to start with since I had finished the climb yesterday--and the day was warm in the sun, cold in the shade, which has been the trend the last few sunny mornings. And the trail curved around Cathedral Rock, offering views from both the east and then the north, but wistfully turning away and heading on its way along a shelf-trail going north. And after a bit it came to a Cascading Stream (so called on Guthooks), which felt to me like it had the strength of a river, tumbling down this large quarry of tumultuous white stone, and it was scary (as almost all large stream crossings are now scary), but there was a log bridge a bit downstream. And the log bridge looked wet and slippery, but was not in fact so, and I took a moment to manage my fear ("fear is the mind-killer"), and then took it achingly slow and carefully. And got across, although it took me 10 minutes to traverse the rock slide and the stream.

After that, it was a bit of green tunnel, and it was getting a bit hot, so I stopped to redeploy the secret weapon and convert to shorts. And while doing so I looked up and saw a quilt of stratus, the stitching between the cloud panels sewed in blue sky, but moving fast--so fast!--to blanket the sky, and I thought, hmm, the pattern may hold yet!

From there it was more green tunnel. But every now and then the tunnel would break, and I would get a view to the west, and see that I was walking a shelf-trail along the eastern slopes of a narrow valley, and just across the way was a range of mountains, with Cathedral Rock the dot of the exclamation point down to the south. Because these ranges were stunning. Washington often draws comparisons with the Sierras--in terms of terrain difficulty, sure, but often also in terms of beauty. And the beauty that I saw today, at least, was different than the Sierras. These peaks were more stark, more jagged. Their spires were like tent poles, jagged peaks suddenly jutting up out of rolling forests, the disturbed slopes concave up in their disturbance. Or to go the full mathematical: they looked like Gibbs phenomenon--albeit more chaotic than those regular ripplings--almost as if the geologic forces that had given birth to them didn't have enough reaction to support such sudden, sharp rises, and the lacking high-frequency components left behind their own jagged ripples, all carved in stone. These peaks feel younger, more varied in shape, more jagged and jutting and irregular; more stark, more moody (or is that just the rapidly overcasting weather?); certainly more colorful (or is that just the autumn?), with distinct contrasts between the dark grays of slopes, intermixed with the lighter gray of faces, and the blank white banks of remaining snow (or are those, possibly, glaciers?), all set atop pre-slopes of dark green conifer and deep red open-vault ground-plant. They also feel more remote and isolated (or is that just the lack of people?) (although, as Moss pointed out yesterday, he's seen more people backpacking out here than anywhere other than the Sierras). They are their own distinct thing, and wonderful in their own right, and certainly worth a section hike from Stevens Pass to Snoqualamie (or vice versa--either works!).

After this, the trail climbed up to Piper Pass, and it crossed over a saddle, and in the next valley over I was treated now to walking along the bottom edge of one of these peaks. And here there were massive slopes of tumbles of white boulder, rock tumbling down like water, flowing on geologic time. And high above the stone looked so white and pure, and down below, up close, I could see the moss growing almost through the grains, the colors running the gamut from olive green to deep brown to old black. And I thought, had I the time, I could sit and stare for hours, and maybe the Second Old Friend would come along, and maybe a few words would start to try and capture the scene.

But I hadn't the time, because from here, I could look out north and I could see the mist and fog starting to roll in. And with it, the rain. And this began the second half of today, which was head-down-and-hike. Because the clouds did roll in, and the rain did come with it, and now there was nothing to see, and so nothing to do but hike. And so I donned the full rain gear--pack cover, rain jacket, rain pants, umbrella--and off I went. And the terrain here was a mix of sharp descent, following by rolling green tunnels, following by sharp climbs. And I wanted to get in at least 18 miles--the old "average" miles per day I had used to estimate my Washington traversal time--and that meant getting to at least Mig Lake, which was still a ways away. And I put my head down and went. And the benefit of rain--if there is any--is that it's usually cooling, so it's possible to put forth greater effort without overheating.

And I got to Mig Lake but it was early, still 5:30pm, and I thought, I can go some more. And this turned out to be a mistake. Because there were plenty of campsites around Mig Lake, and the rain up to now had turned to light rain at times to be sure, but was mostly the mi4 mi4 yue3 of being in a cloud, and so it would have likely been possible to set up at Mig Lake in a mist rather than a full rain. But I kept going, and now there was a hill and it was a steep steep climb, and it was slightly overgrown so now the water off the leaves was dripping down onto my shoes, thoroughly soaking them through and my socks and feet with in, and now I was tired and wet and looking for campsites but not finding any. And I passed by a stream that was supposed to have a campsite but saw none, and I passed by the Josephine Lake junction and there were supposed to be campsites at the lake but anywhere from a half mile to a mile away, and likely downhill (meaning a climb tomorrow morning), and I was starting to despair about finding a campsite. I had half-jokingly messaged Ian earlier and noted, it's raining, it's 4:30pm, it's 10 miles to Stevens Pass, should I push to the pass? I could get a hotel with a late check-in in Leavenworth I was sure, but didn't know if I would be able to get the needed hitch into town at 9:30pm. And Ian had said the sensible thing which was camp tonight and finish the hike to the pass tomorrow, but where was I going to camp? The next lake was Lake Susan Jane, and that one had campsites too, but the Guthooks comments said they tended to flood in the rain, and I was already hiking in water: didn't need to *sleep* in water too! And I came to Lake Susan Jane, and indeed most of the campsites were already pooling water. But there were a couple, tucked under trees, not really campsites per se but fairly cleared spaces, and these weren't pooling water. And I picked one and set up my tent--which barely fits, and it severely slanted--and of course my tent, inner as well, got wet as I set up, and of course everything was damp inside the tent. But going slow I managed to get everything into the tent and all my nightly chores done without getting the essential things wet (i.e., sleeping bag and sleeping clothes are still dry, and now the inside of the tent is mostly dry as well), so here I am. And I will say the benefit of sleeping under big trees in the rain is that I can hear the wind howling away outside, but my tent flaps aren't moving much. And the disadvantage is that there are always big drops hitting the top of my tent, even if it's just mi4 mi4 yue3 outside, because they gather on the tree leaves until they're big enough to slip and fall. So the tent will always be rain-wet rather than just fog-wet, just the rain it experiences will be a sporadic light rain, rather than a full heavy rain.

And that was the hike! From a morning so hot I changed into shorts, to an evening where I tumbled soaking wet and cold into my tent and had to invent drying protocols. From a morning spent gawking at Cathedral Rock and the tall spires of the mountains, to an afternoon where I could see nothing but fog and the puddles accumulating on the trail in front of me. (Which I tend to avoid, even after my shoes are soaked through, because that mud can be slippery, as I found when I slipped and almost wrenched my back at one point.) Things are ok now, and tonight I think I'll be fine. The forecast calls for the rain to continue in the morning, though, so likely I'll be packing up in the wet, but luckily I have the dream of town tomorrow--will try to get a hitch from Stevens Pass to Leavenworth--where hopefully it will be dry and if not, I can always get a hotel room and *make* it dry!

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Some notes:

-- Campsite > Cascading Stream > Deception Lakes > Piper Pass > Hope Lakes > Mig Lake > Lake Susan Jane

-- Just a quick note of clarification: up to this point, I haven't given in and started listening to music or podcasts or audiobooks on trail. Nope, my ears are still open. This is born from coming up hiking in southern California, where trails are always shared with mountain bikers if not outright trucks and vehicles (there are a lot of truck trails to hike in southern California). So you rapidly learn to keep your ears open, and that habit has stuck with me on the PCT. If I say that I'm singing something, then I'm singing along to the song playing in my head, not on my headphones. Which is good because for some songs--cough Simon and Garfunkel cough--I need to do a little pitch shifting by a whole step (or two) and that's easy to do in my head. I have listened to a track or two on occasion: I listened to the Hot Rats rendition of Peaches en Regalia on the day of that blog entry, and also Levees (and Wading Through, the next track on A Tale of God's Will that's the same idea as Levees, but with piano instead of trumpet), but those were single tracks and then I put away the earphones. I must say there are some benefits to playing music back in your head: for example, for Peaches en Regalia I can never remember the order of all the parts, so I'll often get stuck in an infinite loop where I'm playing back the same parts over and over again and, with that piece, that's not necessarily a bad thing!

-- Camping cohort: none, just me. As always, it seems these days. To be fair, this spot is pretty singular: it's actually smaller than my tent footprint, which is why my tent is so slanted: it's rising up out of the tiny flat portion onto the slopes. But hopefully the ground here won't pool water, and hopefully I won't wake in a lake, and so long as that's true, the rest I can deal with!