Ingrid on the PCT: Washington Section C: White Pass to Snoqualmie Pass (August 24-31, 2012)

I took a room at the Village Inn at White Pass.
It was so good to be out of the cold!

At the Cracker Barrel Store

My new boots!
(This was a leap of faith - I had ordered them blindly from REI. They did
not carry my old model any more, but the salesperson swore that these
would have exactly the same fit. And they did! No new blisters, yay!)

One of the many lakes in the William O'Douglas Wilderness

Robbus guarding my sleeping bag

Somewhere on this part of the trail, I met two hikers, one of
whom turned out to have stayed at the Hiker Hut in Etna, CA,
at exactly the same time as I did three years ago! He did not
remember me, "but there was this lady from Germany with
really heavy leather hiking boots"... ;-)

The Bumping River really did sound bumpy.

More trail mail

Mount Rainier playing peek-a-boo

Lots of lupine

Lupine

Entering Mount Rainier National Park, woohoo!

Mount Rainier at dusk

Anderson Lake, with park boundary marker on the tree.
The trail kept winding in and out of the park, so that the lake I camped at was
still within the park, but the spot where I pitched my tent (and took the photo
from) was not!

Getting closer to Chinook Pass, the trail became incredibly crowded. It was
the weekend, and for the last two miles there was a constant stream of day
hikers coming up the trail. No solitary wilderness experience here!

Lots of cars at the Chinook Pass trailhead. It was a zoo!

I don't know if I would have noticed this little sign on the ground all by itself
(I was so stressed out by the masses of people around me), but Anish, a south-
bound hiker I met on the trail, alerted me that there would be trail magic ahead.
(We immediately recognized each other as fellow PCT hikers among the throngs
of day tourists by our ULA packs.)

Double trail magic!
Between Anderson and Dewey Lake, I had met a very nice day hiker couple
whom I chatted with for a while. They gave me a hard-boiled egg (pictured).
Not pictured: Upside Down, who fed me and a couple of other thru hikers
chips and soda at Chinook Pass. It was just what I needed, having felt
extremely sluggish and un-energetic that day. Thank you, Upside Down!!!

Highway 410 leading up to Chinook Pass

I didn't make it very far that day.
I decided to take it easy and camp at Sheep Lake.

Morning tea at Sheep Lake

Tent chaos

Looking back towards Sheep Lake and Chinook Pass

Placer Lake

Mount Rainier kept hiding behind other mountain ridges.

PCT trail marker

Some pictures actually look better in black and white.

...for example, these clouds

Mount Rainier from the northeast

Shortly before Bluebell Pass

Interesting clouds

Approaching a pass is always a bit like opening your Christmas presents:
Oh, the suspense!!! What's is gonna be?!

Scout Pass

Bluebell

Basin Lake

Interesting plant

... in black and white

Fireweed

Clouds

More clouds

Lots of rocks

At first I thought it was very aptly named "Airplane Meadows" because I kept
hearing the noise of planes overhead (presumably on their way to SeaTac airport)
but some locals I met at Camp Urich later told me that a pilot once crash-landed
a plane in this meadow shortly after World War II. Amazingly, he walked away
unharmed.

I had not planned on camping at Airplane Meadows since it was over half a mile
off-trail, but I needed water and I could not find the spur trail to Morgan Spring
even after walking along that segment of the trail three times!

The remains of the crashed airplane

Government Meadow

Camp Urich cabin. The horsemen there were really nice. We chatted for
a while, and they gave me an apple and some pickles.

Burn area

The Forest Service in WA must have a special budget just for putting these signs
up all over the place. I mean, it's nice to know what caused this burn, or that the
forest I was walking through was "logged in 1974; planted in 1975" (another
example), but seriously, aren't there worthier things to spend your money on??

Clearcut with fireweed

That's not a speck of dirt; that's a bird!

First views of the North Cascades

Puzzling remnant of a trail marker up on Blowout Mountain. I wanted to take the
side route to get water at the little lake, and this seemed like the right location for
the trail junction - except that the trail number did not match with what was given
in my book. I was rescued from my confusion by a team of three hikers from Israel
(Mossad, Sugar High and John Wayne) whom I had seen earlier at Government
Meadows. They were super nice, offered that I could camp with them instead
up on the ridge, and gave me some water. Thanks, guys!!!

The weather had turned cold and foggy.

Up on Blowout Mountain

Cooking dinner in my vestibule; rain and fog outside.

Plants in the fog, at dusk.

The weather was still pretty dismal the next morning.

The footprint of my tent

I found some flagging tape in the woods and made a sign for the elusive
"When you see the number 29 on a tree, you've gone too far" water source
after a fellow hiker (who was also looking for the water) walked right past it,
claiming that "this could not be the junction"...

Rain drops...

Drying out my wet tent during lunch break

Thankfully, the bad weather didn't last very long.

Washington has a reputation for overgrown trails.
Imagine trying to walk through this when everything
is wet! (Yes, that's the trail right there.)

I was so in love with my gaiters. They kept my feet and legs warm and dry.

Power lines across the trail

Camping with Late Start and Second Chance shortly before Dandy Creek

Dew drops

Very weathered sign at Yakima Pass

On the way up to Mirror Lake

Mirror Lake

Second Chance and Late Start drying out their tents

Looking down into the Snoqualmie River Valley, and at I-90

Because the weather had become nice and warm again so
quickly, I decided to camp at Lodge Lake, clean up there, and
not hike down to Snoqualmie Pass until the following morning
for breakfast (which I had at the Pancake House, mjamm!).