Just going for a walk

There's the illusion of the tent in the morning: every morning when I wake, the illumination of the inside of the tent suggests gray skies and cold weather outside. In reality, it hasn't been that: usually it's been blue skies and--ok, the cold weather is true. This morning was the closest though: I woke in the middle of tall forest where the sun could just barely navigate between all the trunks, so the sky wasn't gray, but brown. Today the trail was a lot of up and down, up and down. In fact, it seemed to eschew flat like the plague, and relish up and down, up and down. And the half the time the up was steep enough that I had to intentionally take a breath, slow down, and take it ponderous and pushed. By route, the trail was likely the same as the shelf-ridge-saddle trail of yesterday, only today the trail was always wooded--often open-vaulted, but sometimes close-vaulted--and that gives a very different feel. Enough so that I forget that it's a shelf-ridge-saddle ...

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...

Today was a small day. I woke, wrote, got started late, around 8am. The morning conversation around the campground was the usual: J-Pro had heard some small animals in the night, had I heard them (I had not); and how far are you going today (he's going to the ridge *after* Chinook Pass, I'll be lucky to make it to the ridge *before*). Then I started and, on a cold morning--J-Pro's thermometer read high 30s--was slow to warm up: it took maybe 30 minutes of hiking rather than the usual 5. Was it just the cold? Or maybe the fatigue?--the left ankle tendon does feel more loaded than usual. Either way, hopefully it lasts for just a little longer... In the morning the trail continued the Washington trend of wandering through the woods, then breaking out into little meadows or ponds, then diving back in. There are a lot of little side trails here; on a whim I wandered one of them through some trees and over a little rise not 50 yards before I came to a little pond. A wanderer'...

I woke late this morning, partially because I was up late writing (but got all but one day of Oregon done, so I'm going to say it was worth it), and partially because I knew it was a short day in to White Pass. And so, even as I was packing up, I could hear--and then see--folks out of the Big Group passing me by. Their original plan had been to get into White Pass last night, then spend the entirety of today relaxing, but I think Goat Rocks upset those, albeit in the best way possible. So they were instead headed in as early as possible today, to relax as much as possible--I think they had rented a cabin somewhere in town--and would head out tomorrow. I, on the other hand, had a different idea. And perhaps here's a good place to describe my Washington strategy a bit. So far in Washington the weather has been extraordinarily good: sometimes cold at night, but always warm, if not sometimes hot, during the day. And while the weather's been good, my idea has been to hike hike h...

I remember way back in Oregon, at Shelter Cove, talking to a SOBO with Double Snacks, and she asked him where he thought the beauty of Washington would start to shine through. (For her this was academic--she's hiked Washington back in 2017--but for me this was quite interesting.) And he thought about it, and said White Pass. Then he thought about it again and amended, well, Goat Rocks, which is right before White Pass. From there on north, he said, Washington is pretty amazing. Well I had entered Goat Rocks Wilderness yesterday; according to my pad, I passed the sign at 3:01pm. But it wasn't until today that I got to *see* Goat Rocks. I woke a bit late, took some time in the morning catching up on some blog entries. I was thinking about how far to go today: it was 26 miles to White Pass which I didn't want to do in a day--my left ankle was feeling ever so slightly loaded in the morning--so I figured I'd do 20 miles today, then do 6 tomorrow morning to get into town earl...

Adams Creek sounded just as loud in the morning, and even when I glanced it over the bluff as I was taking down my tent, it looked to be rushing just as strong. But when I reached it and properly surveyed, I did notice a difference. At this time, the Adams Creek crossing consists of two forks: you cross the first to get onto a little island in the middle, then cross the second to get to the other side. Both forks have log bridges, and that's what folks were using yesterday to cross. The log bridge of the first fork, though, felt dicey to me--it was just a couple of medium-to-thin logs above the water--and the water level was too high to allow a fording, so I didn't have a good way to cross the first fork. But this morning, the water level was lower, and lots of rocks that had been underwater suddenly were above the surface. And so I was able to rock-hop the first fork, avoiding the questionable logs. As for the second fork, there was nothing but the logs, with the water churnin...

You want to know how hospitable Camp Jonah is, how generous? There are two cars parked out front: a blue SUV and a gray minivan. They're for us to use. They're not locked, the keys are in the ignition; McQueen drove one this morning, shuttling a bunch of hikers to the cafe for breakfast and, when his food came early, I drove it, continuing his tradition. Just cars, just sitting out front, and you're free to use 'em. But for me the real realization of just how generous this place is came when I got on the bus--yep, an actual school bus--for the 10:00am shuttle back to the trailhead. Because that bus was driven by Jeff, who runs the place and, while I didn't talk to him personally, I did get to encounter--even if just indirectly--a bit of his personality. And policies and practices may be generous, sure, and I understand that. But when I meet *people* who are generous, who have that happy, giving spirit about them, well for me that's what makes generosity real. To...