Washington, The Land of Switchbacks

Washington, Section H: Cascade Locks to Highway 12 (at White Pass)

Section I: Highway 12 to Snoqualmie Pass

Section J: Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass

Charles and I are now 2,464.2 miles down to the trail. We are over halfway done with Washington and we’ve completed 93% of the entire PCT.

We’re taking a near-o at the Mountaineer’s Lodge at Stevens Pass, so I finally have a chance to write about our time in Washington this far.

While Washington’s nickname is “The Evergreen State”, I feel there should be a mention of switchbacks somewhere. At Snoqualmie Pass my dad look up that we had about 110 miles to the border as the crow flies. At that point in time we had about 260 trail miles left, so some of those miles must contribute to switchbacks. Switchbacks aside, Washington is absolutely stunning. If you want some additional word choices for the state you could go with “magnificent”, “gorgeous”, or “stupendous.” All will suffice.

Leaving Oregon, hikers cross the “Bridge of the Gods.” This walk is a mildly windy and terrifying experience with the Columbia River below and cars zipping past. We did get high fives from a passing vehicle occupant.

Once through the excitement of crossing into Washington, the next four days to Trout Lake were relatively underwhelming. We had a bit of a green tunnel effect with occasional views of Mt. Adams. We also got one final view of Mt. Hood with Mt. Jefferson barely visible on the horizon.

We arrived at the small town of Trout Lake in the evening. We resupplied and I was hopelessly sidetracked due to playing with a dog and petting cats. We camped that night next to the general store and headed back to the trail on the 10:30AM shuttle the next morning.

We entered the Mt. Adams Wilderness and finally got some close up views of the mountain. Of all activities one does in a wilderness, I can check of booking airplane tickets off my list. I spent an hour on the phone and lost phone service twice, but I eventually got our tickets home arranged. We hiked until 9PM that night to reach twenty miles for the day.

Our next wilderness we hiked through was the Goat Rocks Wilderness, which is currently one of my all time favorite areas. We hiked through Cispus Pass and got to see the resident goats of the wilderness (the white dots in the second picture).

The next day was spectacular. We started the morning off with Mt. Adams, followed by Mt. St. Helens, and the Mt. Rainier. On this section hikers walk along the wilderness’ famous knife edge.

After the knife edge we took a reroute due to fire closures. While steep, the views made up for the new trail. The reroute takes hikers to Highway 12, where there is a trailhead. Most trailheads we’ve come across have been flat and decently spacious, so we figured we could camp there for the night. We arrived to the trailhead around 8PM to find it on the side of the highway with merely a pull out for cars. In the rain we hitchhiked to White Pass, a difficult task at night. Luckily a guy who hiked the trail two years earlier picked us up.

After leaving White Pass we briefly entered Mt. Rainier National Park. We got one final view of the mountain before it disappeared into the clouds. That night started the rain we’ve had on and off for the last several days.

At the Mike Urich Cabin hikers were having a drying party as everything was soaked. We also got some trail magic from some day hikers.

The pikas have finally accepted me as the number one appreciator of the species’ cuteness and are making more appearances.

We made it to Snoqualmie Pass and stayed at the Washington Alpine Club’s Guye Cabin. The cabin has 75 bunks and is complete with a drying room, our new favorite place to put wet gear.

The next day we entered the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. We walked across the Kendall Catwalk with a cloudy view. In the afternoon the clouds cleared and we had spectacular views of the mountains and lakes. We did quite a bit of climbing in this wilderness area, but the mountains made it completely worth it. The rain or threat of rain was a constant presence, so everyone was happy to make it to Stevens Pass to dry out again. Many hikers stay at the Mountaineer’s Lodge next to the ski resort.

We had to go into Skykomish to pick up boxes of food as well as buy an extra days worth of snacks. We had a bit of logistics nightmare as we realized we’d arrive on Sunday and the post office would be closed. Charles, from the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, called the Cascadia Inn and the Skykomish post office and managed to get our boxes forwarded to the inn for a Sunday pick up.

From here we have less than 200 miles to go and only nine days left on trail. We will be done on September 25 and flying home September 26.

This should be the easiest part of the trip because we’re basically there. Our time is being split into two backpacking trips; it’s six days to Winthrop and then three days to Manning Park. I’ve currently done enough backpacking trips to fill a life time, but I think these last days will be the most difficult yet.

I am tired and ready to be home. It’s a simple statement, but the emotions behind it have been tearing me apart these past few days. I keep oscillating between loving the trail so much and feeling sad and anxious. I’m a little worried about how these last days will go, but I know I will do my best to make them as fantastic as possible. I’m so close I don’t think I could stop even if I wanted to. I’ve wanted to reach Canada so badly for the last five months that nine days, in the end, will feel like nothing.

I hope to do one more blog post from Winthrop, but if I don’t have time, you’ll hear from me next from either Vancouver International Airport or Phoenix, AZ!