Section 26 - Stevens Pass to Stehekin
September 5
20 miles. It was a rainy, foggy, and cool hike after a
nice break in Skykomish with friends and hot food.
Perry and his friend Liz picked me up at Stevens Pass
yesterday and drove me down the hill to tiny Skykomish
for the night. The postage stamp town has a post office,
a couple of hotels, and a few homes on the banks of the
Skykomish River. It also has a railroad track with freight
trains that run all night. It's reassuring to be woken
at 3 a.m. by a loud blast from the engineer's horn and
know that the nation's rail freight system is hard at
work.
We ate dinner at the Skykomish Hotel down the street.
The grill was closing but I managed to consume a chili-cheese
burger, a bacon burger, two orders of fries, and a large
caesar salad. Nothing fancy or especially tasty but calories
are calories.
My friends Rita and Robyn drove up from Seattle this
morning and joined us for breakfast. Everyone except me
ordered pancakes and were flabbergasted when the fluffy
hubcaps showed up. They were at least as big as, and quite
possibly bigger than, the pancakes at Seiad Valley. Wow.
No one came close to finishing their meal. It was great
fun to see my friends and nice of them to drive all the
way up to see me.
After our late breakfast, Perry and Liz drove me back
to the pass and I got on the trail at noon. It was drizzling
slightly but the showers began in earnest 10 minutes into
the hike. I hiked without stopping until 7pm but saw very
little beyond the trail. Late this afternoon, while walking
along a barren ridge, I found a jacket by the side of
the trail. I hurried to find the owner and within the
hour I came to a group of 10 on a Sierra Club outing.
Ironically, the jacket belonged to the trailsweep who's
responsible for slow hikers and lost gear.
I'm camped tonight on the trail at 5,400 feet, about
2 miles above the Sierra Club group at Pear Lake. I pitched
my tent a few feet below a saddle to keep out of the wind
and blowing rain. It's raining steadily and the temperature
is 38 degrees. I'm sure it's snowing again on the higher
peaks. The weather is predicted to break tomorrow and
I'm hopeful for drier conditions when I traverse Glacier
Peak.
I cooked dinner again from inside my tent and then did
something I had not done in 4 1/2 months on the trail--I
kicked over the pot. "@$%#&*!!!" I managed
to salvage most of it, along with some twigs and pebbles,
but I was hungry and cold and didn't need the aggravation.
It won't happen again.
September 6
29 miles. Another cold, rainy, and snowy day. I wasn't
going to say it but, oh what the heck, I'M TIRED OF THIS
WEATHER!
It rained all night. When I got up it was 35 degrees,
foggy, and still raining. Everything in the tent was damp
from the near 100% humidity. I packed the last of my things
inside and then stepped outside to fold up the tent. When
I finally got the tent put away my hands were like rocks.
A few minutes up the trail, at 5,500 feet, the rain turned
to snow. The ground was too warm for the snow to stick
but it accumulated on residual snowbanks and broken tree
branches. For the rest of the morning I followed a series
of ridges, each near or above the rain/snow line. I rounded
a ridge to half-frozen Lake Sally Ann, as new snow accumulated
before the old snow could melt. An hour later, I crossed
into Glacier Peak Wilderness in a blinding snow squall.
I was last here in 1977, as an Outward Bound student in
much better weather. Welcome back.
I ascended more ridges and then came to White Pass at
5,900 feet. A white world lay above me. Two worried hikers
appeared out of the storm, heading south, and asked if
I had an ice ax. I'd left mine with Perry, based on trail
e-mail from PCTers ahead of me. With "You'll never
make it" eyes they said the way ahead to Red Pass
was snowed over and not passable without one. They wished
me well and hurried on. Yikes! There was a sheltered campsite
a few feet away and I was tempted to fold up shop for
the day and wait for better weather. But I pressed on,
knowing I could return to the campsite, and made my way
up the snowy ridge. Fortunately, their warnings and my
fears were way overblown. The slope was very steep but
the trail was good and the 2 inches of new snow only made
it a little slippery. I reached Red Pass at 6,500 feet
in a winter wonderland and then dropped off the other
side into the White Chuck River valley. I descended all
the way down to 3,700 feet before climbing back up to
5,600 feet for tonight's campsite at Glacier Creek.
On the way down the valley I met two men on horseback
coming up the trail. I stepped aside to let them pass.
The older fellow said, "You picked a Hell-of-a-day
to go for a hike." "And you for a ride,"
I replied. He nodded, pulled his hat down a little lower,
and rode on. The younger guy--packhorse in tow--said,
"Where ya headed?" I told him where and where
I had come from. "Alone?", he asked. I nodded.
He paused, raised his chin a little, and said, "You
fellas are tough." Then he rode on to catch his companion.
Yeah, tough, or a little short on gray matter.
Late this afternoon I crossed through a rocky, slippery
section of trail near Kennedy Creek. My footing gave way
and I fell hip-first onto some rocks. Bone met rock and
for a sickening moment I thought my trip had come to an
end, 6 days from the border. Fortunately, the hip is just
bruised not broken. It made me realize how close I came
today, and have come many times, to a trip-ending injury.
My guardian angel must be getting tired of bailing me
out.
It's 35 degrees at my Glacier Creek campsite and a hundred
feet up the hill the ground is white from the storm. It
stopped raining and snowing a couple of hours ago and
I'm hopeful it's a sign of better weather to come.
September 7
25 miles. Somebody upstairs was listening because today's
weather was perfect.
It was clear and 25 degrees when I woke up this morning--definitely
the coldest morning since the High Sierra. My shoes, socks,
and tent were all sheets of ice. It was oh-so-tough to
get out of my warm bag and get going. You know it's going
to be a hard day when you have to put on frozen socks.
I had a little visitor last night. A furry little visitor
with whiskers. I'd heard tales of Washington's mice but
this midnight mouse was the first one I'd seen. Last night
was also the first night I camped in an established campsite.
I think there's a connection. It jumped on my pack, rattled
my cooking pot, and tried to steal my spoon. I shoed it
away 4 times before it gave up and went home to its mousal
spouse.
I got a late start and walked fast to warm my frozen
feet. I climbed up Fire Creek Pass, on frozen new snow,
to a breathtaking panorama of the North Cascades. Heavily
glaciated, with new snow on top, the North Cascades stretched
out across the horizon. My pitiful 35 mm lens had no chance
capturing that view. I descended snowy slopes past frozen
Mica Lake to Milk Creek, 2,500 feet below. Immediately
I climbed back to a 6,000 foot ridge and high basin on
Glacier Peak's north side. New snow lingered in the meadows
and for some of the plants it was an abrupt end to a very
short summer. I rounded a high cirque and then dropped
3,000 feet to the Suiattle River before climbing another
1,000 feet to tonight's campsite on the trail.
Unlike the gentle, contouring traverse around Mt. Adams,
the trail around Glacier Peak drops in and out of steep
ravines on the mountain's lower flanks. It has to to avoid
the glaciers. The result is a series of precipitous drops
and ascents along the trail's counter-clockwise mountain
traverse. Today's total was 5,000 feet up and 6,000 feet
down. My left knee and shin would very much like to see
my head on a platter. I think God made the northern half
of Washington--Glacier Peak in particular--to punish overconfident
PCT hikers who thought that they could actually finish
this hike.
I'm camped about 3 miles above the Suiattle River. Miners
Creek rushes below me and I'll cross it in the morning
on my way to Suiattle Pass and Stehekin. That assumes
that my legs stop screaming.
September 8
24 miles. I'm sitting at the High Bridge Ranger Station
waiting for the 6 p.m. shuttle bus to Stehekin--on
the western shore of Lake Chelan. The Ranger Station is
locked up tight and there's nothing else here but a bench
and a bus schedule. I'm hungry, dirty, tired, and my legs
hurt. But I'm struck with the awesome realization that
I AM GOING TO FINISH this very long walk. Even if I have
to crawl, I WILL get to Canada. I'm taking the day off
tomorrow to rest my beat-up body and contemplate the journey's
final 4 days. This is the last port of call, the last
feeding trough before the border. 89 miles to Manning
Provincial Park in Beautiful British Columbia.
It was another spectacular, sunny day. The autumn leaves
glowed red and yellow, the snowy peaks were brilliant
white, the sky a neon blue. If Glacier Peak Wilderness
had a Chamber of Commerce, today would be the cover photo
of the Welcome brochure.
The day dawned dry, my socks weren't frozen, and I was
on the trail by 7 a.m. I climbed up Miners Creek, crossed
on a twisted but unbroken bridge, and then started the
long ascent to Suiattle Pass. I looked across the valley
at the near vertical wall of Fortress Mountain, its upper
third frosted from the storm. To the south, Glacier Peak's
intense white light was overpowering. In the high meadows,
the huckleberry plants radiated red in the early fall
sun. I surprised a bear feeding in one such meadow and
it scampered away when it saw me. As bears go it looked
thin. The heavy snow and late thaw made this a poor year
for alpine berries and I felt sorry for the bear. If it
survives the winter, it will be one hungry bear come spring.
I crossed 6,000-foot Suiattle Pass and began the 19-mile,
4,400-foot drop down the Agnes Creek drainage. The towering
walls and broad glacial valley reminded me of Kings Canyon,
some 1,700 miles back. At 2,500 feet the temperature climbed
into the 70's and I felt comfortably warm for the first
time in many days. I came down the last set of switchbacks
and crossed over roaring Agnes Creek just before it joined
the Stehekin River, on its way, in turn, to Lake Chelan.
Like the river, I'm almost home.
|
