 |
| Trout Lake was one of my favorite trail towns - very small, very rural, super cute! I loved the beautiful flowers... |
 |
| ... not to mention those huckleberry milkshakes at the Trout Lake Cafe! |
 |
| Trout Lake grocery |
 |
| Happy PCT hikers, waiting for their rides: Leslie (southbound from Canada), The Croation Sensation, Not A Chance, Rest Stop, Honoh (Flameboy) |
 |
| Lupine |
 |
| Yup, that's Mount Adams. |
 |
| Pretty wildflowers! Paintbrush, Lupine, and, uhm... (That's already the end of my botanical knowledge...) |
 |
| Mount St. Helens to the left (west); Mount Rainier to the north |
 |
| I think this is Mount Rainier. |
 |
| This is definitely Mount Adams. |
 |
| Glacier on Mount Adams |
 |
| Silty Creek |
 |
| Close-up of that glacer |
 |
| This was the only creek crossing that was a little exciting - the currents were pretty strong, and deep. I tried to cross on the little log "bridge" first, but it was being shaken so badly by the water that I resorted to boulder hopping and getting my feet wet instead. |
 |
| Pond behind Killen Creek |
 |
| Mount Adams at sunset |
 |
| I thought this cloud looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. |
 |
| Waterfall next to my camp site |
 |
| Pika in the rocks at Lava Spring |
 |
| (One of the many many times I wished my camera was a little better...) |
 |
| Approaching the Goat Rocks |
 |
| Looking back towards Mount Adams |
 |
| Approaching Cispus Pass |
 |
| Everything was just covered in lupine. |
 |
| Late Start and Second Chance up on the ridge |
 |
| They were so nice to take a picture of me. (Several, actually.) |
 |
| Still before Cispus Pass |
 |
| I took the straight way up the snow field (see those muddy footprints to the left?) and started a minor mud slide in the process. |
 |
| Snow bridge |
 |
| The Goat Rocks were so unbelievably beautiful that day. I felt like I was walking through the Garden of Eden. |
 |
| Tow-headed Baby |
 |
| Columbine |
 |
| (False) Hellebore |
 |
| Looking back at the Cispus River, and the Goat Rocks above |
 |
| Mount Adams again... |
 |
| I had never seen that many wildflowers in my entire life. |
 |
| The day had been beautiful, but now it was getting late, and the clouds were moving in... |
 |
| I tried to race the clouds coming in from the west, so that I would be able to cross the Knife's Edge before they were there, but of course I lost... |
 |
| Packwood Glacier |
 |
| I took the "stock route" thinking it would be easier - it was late already, and I didn't want to climb up any higher. Boy, was I wrong!!! My sincere respects to any horse that ever attempts that trail. It certainly scared the heck out of me. (Sliding scree, anybody?!) |
 |
| More clouds rolling in... |
 |
| And so it happened that this was all I ever got to see of the Knife's Edge, "one of the most scenic areas of the entire PCT" (as my guide book promised)... |
 |
| I ended up camping on the Knife's Edge! I certainly had not intended to, but it was icy and windy and close to getting dark, and I was exhausted from a long day of hiking. I was stumbling along the ridge when I suddenly saw a human form appear in the fog in front of me. A friendly couple, Molly and Dumptruck, were so nice to offer sharing their little camp spot with me, so I decided to call it a day and hunker down. It was so good to be out of the wind! (And with company - thanks again, guys!) |
 |
| I had had some hopes that the weather might be better the next morning, but alas - no. Clouds again! (The irony of this is that when I got out of my tent in the middle of the night, the entire sky was clear. Seems like the clouds decided to come back in the morning just to annoy me...) |
 |
| Once you descended to lower elevations, you got out of the clouds. |
 |
| My guidebook said: "beautiful campsite with great views of Mount Rainier!" - Um, yeah... |
 |
| The weather was icy. I later met somebody (local) who told me that this was the kind of weather they typically had in October: "We usually have a bit of a bug problem in August but this is nice and refreshing!" - I was shivering in my fleece hat and gloves and tried to find it "nice and refreshing", too... |
 |
| Shoe Lake |
 |
| Looking down towards White Pass (My camera became hypothermic and refused to take any more pictures after this.) |
No comments:
Post a Comment