Labor Day at Chinook Pass

The weather on Labor Day wasn't looking much
better than the day before. =(

September 6: Happy Labor Day! Just goes to show how out-of-date this blog has become, eh? =) I was glad Labor Day had finally arrived. Perhaps the large quantities of people on the trail would get off the trail and go back to work now. I expected to see plenty of people early in the day, but as time marched on and more and more people had to get back to the civilized world, I hoped the crowds of people would thin out a bit.

It wasn't a joyful Labor Day morning, however. When I woke up, it was raining, and under my tarp, I felt like I was tucked away in a small cave. Not a smidgen of light could be seen anywhere. No moon, no stars--just like being deep in a cave without a flashlight.

By sunrise, things started to light up, but it wasn't much of an improvement--all I could see was rain. Thick, cold, wet, miserable rain. I stayed dry under my tarp, but it didn't motivate me to get up early. I hoped to wait it out, and maybe--if I was lucky--the rain would stop. And it would eventually stop, and I finally broke down camp and started hiking again at about 9:30.

While the rain had stopped, the tree snot had not, and I pulled out my umbrella to protect me from the onslaught.

The trail went down to Chinook Pass, where I started passes masses and masses of day hikers, which slowed me down considerably. It seemed like everyone had a story to tell about something that happened to them somewhere on the PCT, and I didn't want to be rude by cutting them off, but the sheer numbers were staggering, and it seemed like every single one of them wanted to ask me if I was a PCT thru-hiker, how far I had hiked, yadda, yadda, yadda. I couldn't wait for Labor Day to be over.

The fog lifted just high enough, or rather, I descended just far enough, that I could get some decent views down the canyons below me. The mountains above me stayed in a perpetual fog, and Mount Rainer never showed itself.

Late in the afternoon, a bit of sun finally peeked out from the clouds, but only briefly before the clouds and fog returned. I filled up with water from a crappy little of water since it was the last water source on the trail for the next 20 miles. The day was getting depressing.

Late in the day, I passed four men wearing camo and bows and arrows--the first hunters I'd seen since the Goat Rocks. I didn't stop to talk, though, and plowed ahead. I didn't even know what they were hunting, but I started walking a little louder and made sure my brighter colored gear was easily visible. I get nervous around hunters....

There was supposed to be a large lake off on the
right side of the trail, but I could barely even see
the shoreline!

At one junction on the trail, someone had created an arrow in the trail pointing to the left. I wasn't expecting a junction--my map showed nothing--and it looked like a side trail, perhaps to a campsite. The arrow in the trail concerned me, though. I would have continued straight without hesitation.... except for that arrow. It's the kind of thing thru-hikers would do to help direct other thru-hikers behind them from taking a wrong turn. I'd depended on these kind of signs for thousands of miles. But this arrow didn't "feel" right. I couldn't imagine the PCT really turned here. It just didn't feel right, and I thought maybe the hunters had set it up to direct other hunters into camp. I saw four of them dressed out in camo, but they were all hiking alone, separated. They might have created the arrow to help each other get back into camp.

Hmm.... I finally decided to ignore the arrow and plow ahead where my gut was telling me to go, then worried for miles that I was headed in the wrong direction. I should have checked out that arrow. If it was a camp, I would have known it in minutes, backtracked to the trail, and not have to worry about hiking in the wrong direction for the next few miles. I'm such an idiot not to check that it was just a campsite.

Chinook Pass, straight ahead!

But I continued on, and an hour or two later, reached another trail junction that was marked with signage, finally confirming that I did go in the correct direction all along. What a relief!

I finally set up camp at Rods Gap for the night, a little after 7:00 in the evening, managing to pull out a 25 miles of hiking despite my late start. I set up my tarp again, almost certain it would rain overnight. I was getting increasingly annoyed at setting up my tarp every night. I liked to sleep under the stars, but haven't been able to since entering Washington. It had already rained more on me in Washington than it had in all of California and Oregon combined. This, I thought to myself, is not acceptable. September is supposed to be beautiful in the Pacific Northwest!

Some of the many, many day hikers at Chinook Pass

The mountains upward towards Mount Rainier were obscured by clouds,
but the views east down the canyon below the clouds were nice. =)

The hatchet job trail workers did to this tree
kind of amused me.... =)

The trail passed by the Crystal Mountain ski resort.
Not much skiing going on at the moment!

Despite the clouds, I still occasionally got some nice views out of the hike. =)

They say every hat has a story to tell.
But this hat isn't talking.....

The fog was so bad, I couldn't use a flash. When I did,
photos would turn out like this one. =(

The trails, needless to say, did not dry out, and were
slick and slippery as ever!

Update on Crash Victims

Amanda noticed some crash investigators poking around the scene of the crash I wrote about last week this morning. I hadn't heard anything new about the incident since then, so I decided to poke around the Internet and found the following update on the West Seattle Blog:

---

Throughout the week, we’ve received notes from people living near the scene of the crash that led to a major power outage early Sunday, wondering how the two people in the car were doing. Though they originally were described as having life-threatening injuries, we have just learned from Harborview Medical Center that the passenger, a 31-year-old woman whose hometown is not listed in the police report, is out of the hospital. The driver, 23-year-old Mohammad Nema of Burien, is still at Harborview but is now in satisfactory condition – and he is charged with vehicular assault as well as domestic violence. According to the charging documents, the passenger was his estranged girlfriend, who had two protection orders against him linked to an assault allegation in early December. The charging papers don’t say why she was with him on Sunday morning, but they say:

… the defendant was speeding well in excess of the posted speed limit. He failed to maintain control of his car and crossed the centerline and began rotating clockwise as he skidded 133 feet. He then left the road and slammed broadside into a utility pole. The force was sufficient to break the pole which caused a power outage in the neighborhood. There was enough energy left to propel his car an additional 52 feet until the car eventually came to a stop. Both the defendant and (passenger) were unconscious. Both suffered at least fractured pelvises. …


A bottle of open, mostly empty tequila was found wedged between the defendant and his driver’s door. Blood alcohol results for him are pending. Preliminary collision reconstruction shows he was speeding at least 48 mph and that does not even take into consideration the energy to break the pole. The analysis indicates he was traveling freeway speeds when he lost control.

When Nema gets out of the hospital, he will be booked into the King County Jail, with bail set at $100,000, according to online records. Court documents say he has a record of citations and charges including driving the wrong way on a one-way street, possessing an open alcohol container in a car, speeding, and driving without liability insurance.

From White Pass to Mount Rainier

September 5: Just Dave and I took our time leaving our room at White Pass. The clouds outside looked cold and ugly, but at least it wasn't raining. Yet. I ate the rest of the leftover lasagna for breakfast, packed up and left. Just Dave was just behind me but wanted to "linger" in the bathroom but would be following along in a few minutes. I went ahead and checked us out, then headed down the Kracker Barrel convenience store at the gas station to pick up a few snacks for the road. Snacks were generally easy to find in even the smallest of stores, so I hadn't shipped those ahead to myself like I did with cereal or dinners.

Just Dave caught up with me in the store where he told me that the cleaning crew walked in on him in the bathroom. Whoops! I didn't really expect them to be that fast in getting the room cleaned. Sorry about that, Dave! He also told me that they were shocked--shocked!--at how clean the room already was. They thought it would be the worst room of all. Unfortunately, there's an element of truth to the term "hiker trash," and hikers aren't exactly famous for their cleanliness. Just Dave and I kept a clean ship, though, and the cleaners were stunned at the lack of dirt we left behind. Score one for the hikers! =) I do prefer to leave a good impression. I want people to welcome hikers rather than consider us a chore or a hassle. It's in our best interests!

A couple of people fishing in this lake.

Just as Just Dave and I finally started hiking, the rain started. A demoralizing, cold, wet rain. It wasn't a heavy rain, but it was persistent. I continued to pass a surprisingly large number of horses on the trail, and noticed that every single group with horses always had at least one dog with them as well. Not that I had any problem with that, but I thought it interesting that there was always at least one dog with anyone traveling on horseback.

The trail, in areas, was as slick as mud, because that's exactly what it was. Where there were no rocks, branches, leaves, needles, or anything on the trail for traction, it was like being on an ice rink, and I slipped and fell several times despite my best efforts. It was, in a word, annoying. Very annoying. The downhills were the worst.

Late in the morning, I ran into Turbo hiking southbound--another hiker I hadn't seen since Southern California.

"Turbo!" I shouted over the rain. "How are you?!"

The trail was slick as mud--because that's what it was!

He seemed surprised that I remembered him. We hadn't really hiked together or even talked very much when we crossed paths in Southern California. I didn't remind him that he was also the only person I caught, quite literally, with his pants down taking a dump. Something like that tends to leave an impression. ;o)

He jumped up to the Canadian border after arriving at Old Station about three weeks earlier, worried that unless he jumped up and started hiking southbound, he wouldn't be able to complete the PCT before the snows drove him off. Looks like I would start to hit those to decided to flip-flop on a regular basis at this point, and I wondered who else I hadn't seen for months might be hiking southbound in my direction.

I told Turbo about the lodging at White Pass in case he was interested in staying there, and we continued on in our separate ways.

By late afternoon, the rain had finally stopped and even the tree snot finally stopped as well, so I managed to dry out by the end of the day. Well, mostly dried out. Below the knees my pants, socks, and shoes stayed wet since it would rub against the wet brush lining the trail. So the rain finally stopped, but it was replaced with a thick layer of fog cutting visibility dramatically.

Going into Mount Rainier National Park, I saw absolutely no views of Mount Rainier due to the rain then fog, and I apparently entered the park boundaries on three separate occasions based on the signage along the trail, although it was never clear when I left the park. The trail descended a short ways, finally popping me out just under the layer of fog. It wasn't fog now--it turned into clouds! I couldn't see any of the mountain tops above me, the views below stretched out for miles. A short ways ahead, I could see smoke from a campfire rising, coming approximately from a gap where I had hoped to find a place to camp. How perfect would that be--camping out with fellow thru-hikers where they had already started a campfire going!

But when I arrived, I found a homeless-looking guy trying to stay warm by a faltering fire. I know calling him "homeless-looking" is like the pot calling the kettle black, but after you've been on the trail long enough, you can notice little things that distinguish the two. This guy was wearing clothes that looked like they came from Wal-Mart, and he had a tarp erected across the fire that looked far too heavy for a thru-hiker to carry. He looked more like a militia member than a thru-hiker, and I got a bad feeling about him. He didn't say anything or do anything threatening--it just seemed like he was more likely on the trail to evade the law than because of a love for the trail.

I did stop for a minute or two to chat, and he did confirm that he was not a thru-hiker, but that he had been hiking for four months, getting off several times and skipped around. He invited me to share the fire with him, but I declined. The bad vibes were overwhelming, and I told him that I didn't want to stop so early. It was a complete and total lie--I originally intended to stop right there, but I wasn't going to stop with this guy nearby. Nope. I continued hiking.

I only went a couple of more miles before finally setting up camp near Anderson Lake. It had a nice view, and even a couple of small sun breaks started to peek out. I still set up my tarp in case the rain started again or condensation would be a problem. Either seemed like a very real possibility.

Just Dave didn't catch up to me, and I wouldn't see him again for the rest of the trail. I was a little disappointed--it was nice having him around. =) Oh, well, there would be other hikers ahead. There always were! I cooked dinner from inside my sleeping bag--it was getting cold out at night now. The day wasn't particularly warm, but nights were getting downright cold.

These logs were so wet and slippery, I just walked directly through the
water instead. My feet were already wet anyhow, and falling off the log
would have gotten me a LOT more wet than just walking through the water.

A couple of horses at a horse camp along the trail.

Stupid fog....

Late in the afternoon, the sun managed to peek through in a couple of places.

Anderson Lake. Camping along the shore was prohibited, but there was an
officially designated campsite a short ways behind me where I set up for the night.

Give Me White Pass, or Give Me Death!

The view from under my tarp in the morning.

September 4: In case you haven't noticed, I've long since run out of ideas for good, gripping titles on my post. Just in case you were wondering. =)

I woke up this day to ugly-looking clouds. My tarp was absolutely drenched from condensation, and I wrung it out like a towel as best I could. It would need to be dried out if I got the opportunity.

Just Dave had already left before I even woke up in the morning--definitely an early bird riser! I was up near sunrise. Just Dave must have left when it was still dark. Even by thru-hiker standards, that's pretty darned early. The family from Vancouver wasn't stirring yet as I made breakfast and got ready for another day of hiking, but they did get up shortly before I was ready to leave and chatted a few minutes about the weather and the trail before I waved goodbye and headed into the weather.

The clouds I saw creeping closer during the night had finally arrived. Most of them were below me, settled in the valleys, but so pockets of blue sky would occasionally poke through the thin layer of fog around me. The trail followed a more-or-less level path along the ridge, and when the trail reach the end of the ridge and switched around to the other side, it exposed me to the full furry of the wind. Almost deathly quiet on one side, and an absolute tempest on the other. Night and day.

A cute little waterfall.
(This cascade is actually quite long!)

The views were non-existent, and I worried about that. I was going through the Goat Rocks, and I wanted to see it. I was out of the trees, there were views all around, and none to be seen. Argh! Erik the Black's book even said that the Knife's Edge, coming up in a few more miles, was allegedly THE most spectacular location of the entire trail according to some people. I couldn't miss that. I hoped and prayed the strong wind would blow the clouds away in time for when I passed through. I could see the sun struggling to get through. It was fighting this time. It had to win. It just had to....

The clouds toyed with me, led me on, giving me hope, then dashing them at the next turn of the trail. Patches of snow crossed the trail. Nothing serious, but it covered perhaps a 100 feet of trail at times, and I had to carefully walk across so I didn't slip and hurt myself. "Friggin' September," I thought, "and I'm still worrying about snow." Sheesh!

At one point, Mt. Rainier popped into view, closer and larger than ever. It appeared to float in the sky, above the clouds, but that was just an illusion. The view lasted for all of about five seconds before another wave of clouds swept in obscuring the view. "Glad you could visit," I told the hidden mountain, "but I wished you could have stayed longer." I didn't even have time to take a photo.

The sun is fighting to get out!

And for the next couple of hours, the clouds continued to taunt me. They were alive, teeming and moving, swirling around in the wind and various mountain peaks. I passed several campsites with tents set up, but the occupants were wisely still nestled inside and protected from the elements. The only people I saw were to men dressed in camo and face paint carrying bows and arrows. I wasn't sure what they were hunting, but it made me a little nervous. I don't like hiking in areas where hunters are.

I marched on. I saw evidence of Just Dave, writ in sand on the side of the trail. He liked to carve his trail name into the trail with his trekking pole occasionally so his buddies behind him knew where he was. I added a happy face next to his name. It seemed like the right thing to do. =)

An unexpected sign marked a trail junction. Right was the hiker PCT, left was the horse PCT. I could see a little to the left, the trail crossing a steep, snow-covered slope, and I wondered how a horse could possibly cross that. It didn't look safe for people much less for horses. I followed the hiker PCT, which led up to the tippy-top of a ridgeline where the wind gusts nearly picked me up and hurled me into the abyss. The sun continued it's fight against the clouds, and views started opening up. I could see Mount Rainier again, then lost it just as quickly before appearing again. In the distance, I saw an amazing little cascade of water coming down from an alpine lake. If there was ever a Garden of Eden, that was it.

This marmot couldn't seem to decide if
he wanted to come out or not.

The wind was the biggest struggle. The windchill took its toll as well, keeping my fingers numb. The trail went up and over the very crest of the ridge, coming back down and reconnecting with the horse route practically right next to where I left it. I couldn't believe it! I took the official "hiker trail," and it was probably five times longer, much more wretched, with hardly any views at the top due to the clouds, and I could have probably saved myself a half hour of hiking just by following the stock trail?! Grrrrr....

Nothing can be done about that now. I powered on. It was too cold to stop anyhow.

The trail climbed another ridge and followed along the crest: the Knife Edge. It's called the Knife Edge because the trail is very narrow with long, steep cliffs on both sides--like walking on the edge of a sharp knife. On a normal day, it would be exhilarating. In gale force winds, it was nerve-wracking. The clouds started to lose their hold, however, and the views got better. Much better. I could finally see all of Mount Rainier, completely unobstructed, at the end of a long, beautiful valley. "YES!!!" I shouted into the wind. "THIS is what I'm talking about!!!"

The lingering clouds twisted and danced in the wind. They swirled and sparkled and put on a show like I'd never seen before. The clouds gave life to an otherwise static view, and in the end, improved the experience. Fantastic.

I added the happy face to Just Dave's signature. =)

The trail dropped down from the Knife Edge, and I passed a group of backpackers carrying ice axes heading up. I shouted over the wind to go back while they still could, but they laughed and took pictures of each other. I asked if one of them would get a photo of me, which he did, and we continued on in our respective directions. The trail zagged around to the east side of the ridge, finally saving me from the wind. The west side was brutal, but the east side was deathly still. Almost eerie.

The rest of the day's hiking was largely uneventful. By afternoon, the trail returned down below tree level and views became scarce. I passed a multitude of people, too many to count, out backpacking here on Labor Day weekend, including a dozen or so with horses. I caught up with Just Dave in a small meadow where he had laid out his tent and was drying it where we talked for a few minutes and compared notes of our adventure over the Knife Edge.

He did get some views at the last minute, but probably not as many as I got. I asked how far he planned to hike for the day and his goal was White Pass--the same as mine. I asked him if he knew about the lodging situation there, and he knew about as much as I did, which wasn't much. The only thing I knew about the lodging situation was that there was "lodging" according to Erik the Black. Nothing about what kind of lodging or how expensive it would be.

This alpine lake just captivated me, along with that
long cascading waterfall down the slope from it.

The day before, while talking to Elk, I asked him if he knew anything about it and he said yeah, it was super expensive so nobody was doing it. I was a little disappointed at this, and asked him what super expensive meant, guessing it was probably hundreds of dollars per night. "It's like $75/night," he told me.

In my mind, that's a lot of money for a room, but hardly "out of reach" by my standards. And frankly, if it's the difference between spending $75 for a room or spending a night out in the rain, I'd pay for the room. I sometimes forgot that I'm probably a lot better off financially than most people hiking the trail. I'm certainly not rich, but I still had an income from Atlas Quest. It might not be much, but most people hiking the trail had no income at all. Given how few expenses are on the trail, I actually expected to finish the trail with more money than I started!

But I certainly understand Elk's point of view. When I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, I too had no income at all and was living purely on my savings. I'd stay in the cheapest options available, or skip a town completely just to save a few bucks. It was a nice change, I thought, not to be so concerned with penny-pinching like I had to before. If I wanted to splurge on a $75/night room, I could do so. On the PCT, I would often get my own room at a hotel rather than buying a place in a hostel that might be cheaper just for the extra privacy and to have a television all to myself and not have to share it with anyone. Times have certainly changed since my skinflint way on the AT!

Stock route, or hiker route? I would later wish I
stuck to the stock route, but I didn't.

So I told Just Dave about what Elk had told me about the lodging at White Pass, and we agreed to share a room if one was available for the night. We were a bit concerned about the availability, though. Trying to score a room on Labor Day weekend without any reservations seemed iffy. And maybe the cost for the room was jacked up because of it being Labor Day weekend? We had no way to know until we got there.

I pushed on ahead of Just Dave. He hiked slow, but he made up for that with endurance. He started early, and he finished late, but he made the miles every day.

On the last stretch, down to the highway at White Pass, I encountered a family hiking up the trail. It was late in the day and they had no backpacking gear, so they were obviously out for a short hike. The younger kids seemed grumpy about the "long" hike and were complaining to their parents about how tired they were. How cute. =)

The dad asked me, "How far up does this trail go?"

It should be illegal for there to be
snow in September. It should be, but it's not.

I almost laughed in his face. I didn't want to, I knew he was asking a serious question, but it was really hard for me to keep a straight face. Did he not know that he was hiking the famed Pacific Crest Trail?

"It goes all the way to Mexico," I told him. Completely straight-faced too. It was an amazing performance for me!

"HOLY COW?! Are you serious?!"

"Yes," I told him, nodding. This is the Pacific Crest Trail. It stretches from Mexico to Canada."

"HOLY COW!!!" They were astounded, and when they regained their senses, they asked if the trail went "anywhere cool."

I shook my head. "Not anywhere you could get to before sunset," I told them. "There ARE some really awesome places, but they're a good ten miles away from here. The only things you'll pretty much be able to see are trees like we're standing in already." I felt bad telling them this, but it was true. All the effort they spent climbing up the trail was wasted on trees.

The trail follows quite literally
the very crest of the ridge, with
sharp drops on both sides.

They told me that they had found the trailhead at the road and on a whim just decided to follow it and see where it led. They had no idea what trail they were hiking on or how far it went until they ran into me.

While they were deciding what to do next, I waved goodbye and continued down the trail to White Pass.

I reached the trailhead quick enough, then started walking up the road. The pass itself where the lodging and mini-mart were located was nearly a mile up the road to the west. I could have tried hitchhiking, but being less than a mile away, walking seemed like the quickest way.

I had a maildrop waiting for me at the mini-mart, but before I went there, I headed up the hill behind it to ask about lodging. The man behind the counter told me that there was a room available for $140 which could fit three people, or another one for $60 or something like that that could fit one person.

"No two-person options?" I asked. It would have been cheaper for me just to take the $60 for myself than to split a $140 room with Just Dave. And I bet Just Dave would be more than happy to share floor space with me if that was necessary. "I'll take the room for one," I told the guy.

Mt. Rainier seems to float above the clouds.

"Well," he said, "we do have this other room, but it's in front of the construction we're doing out there. (There was a lot of construction equipment happening outside.) You'd have a view into scaffolding and stuff, but if you don't care about that, it has three beds and is only seventy-odd bucks.

Now that sounds more like it! "I'll take it!" =) I still didn't need a third bed, but splitting a $70 room in half with Just Dave would be awesome. That would work out just fine....

I paid for the room, got the key, and described Just Dave ("a stinky thru-hiker, older than me and bald, but a really nice fellow, and so far as I know, the only other thru-hiker behind me that would likely be coming in"), and told the clerk to send him to our room when he gets in.

Our room was more like a condo than a traditional hotel room, having a full kitchen with a stove, microwave, plates, utensils, turkey basters (seriously!), cookie sheets, muffin sheets, rolling pins, and--shoot, this kitchen is better than our kitchen at home! The wall along the kitchen was lined with wine corks which looked absolutely wonderful, and I don't even like wine. Absolutely charming, the room, with three bunk beds on the side. No television or telephone, however.

The sun is starting to win
its battle with the clouds.

I dropped my backpack then headed back to the mini-mart to pick up my mail drop and dinner. I got the mail drop fine and looked through the food selections for dinner. I had a stove! I had a microwave! I could cook anything! I decided to buy some frozen lasagna. Lasagna sounded excellent. It came in a huge container labeled with Kirkland Signature--obviously from a Costco somewhere. It was also about ten pounds more than I could eat by myself. I hoped Just Dave liked lasagna, because I needed his help to eat it all. And I'd probably still have leftovers for breakfast.

I also bought a liter of real milk, some ice cream, and snacks. I was gonna pig out!

I headed back to the room, meeting Just Dave as he was leaving the room and heading to the mini-mart himself. "Glad you could make it!" I told him. "Isn't our room AWESOME?!" =)

He was pretty pleased with it too. "You like lasagna?" I asked him. "Because I just bought this brick," as I pulled it out and showed it to him. He said that it looked good to him and we went on in our respective directions.

Back in the room, I took a shower and started to get cleaned up. It would have been nice to do laundry, but it was already so late in the day I didn't bother. I didn't even know if the premises had laundry available, and there was no bathtub do it in anyhow. Just Dave probably wouldn't have appreciated it had I tried either. =) But at least I could take a shower and clean up a little bit.

Just Dave had returned by the time I finished my shower, and I started the lasagna cooking in the oven. He told me that he had bumped into Neon at the store who was thinking about getting a room here too.

"We have another bed!" I said. "Why didn't you invite her to share our room?"

He said the idea had crossed his mind, but he wasn't sure if I'd be okay with that and didn't want to take the chance. Which is thoughtful, I suppose, but I was a little disappointed. I hadn't seen Neon since somewhere near Lake Tahoe and would have loved to catch up with her. I didn't even know she was in the area until Just Dave just told me about bumping into her.

"Well, if you see her walk past our window," I said, "let's try to grab her." Figuratively speaking, of course. =)

The lasagna was amazing--food always tastes so good after coming in from the trail. The weather forecast called for rain in the morning, and Just Dave and I were both happy to at least have a dry, warm room for the night. We never did see Neon, so it was a boy-only party in the room. I used Just Dave's cell phone to give Amanda a call and give her an update on my progress. (My cell phone didn't work here.) I took a blanket out of the closet and wrapped it around me. It felt nice. =) I hadn't wrapped a blanket around me like that in months! Just Dave decided to take the bottom bunk, and I climbed up to the top and we hit the sack.

This photo was immensely disappointing to me. The rainbow in the clouds below me
seemed much more obvious when I was hiking than shows up in this photo,
and in this photo, you can't see my shadow in the middle of the rainbow at all.
It's very cool seeing a rainbow circling your shadow in the clouds below you! This is
only the third time I've ever seen this phenomena! So I was a little disappointed
with how the photos turned out. =( There was even a second even fainter rainbow
around this smaller, brighter one, but the fainter rainbow also didn't show up at all in my photos.

Hello, Mount Rainier!!!!

See the trail following that ridge line? I'm past the Knife Edge at this point,
but the trail still follows directly along the top of the ridge.

I'm leaning into the wind so I don't fall over!

Fantastic views. Simply fantastic!

One last view of Mount Rainier..... It never did come completely out from the clouds.

Shoe Lake

The road to White Pass

The mini-mart with my maildrop.

Our little kitchen area of our room.

I really liked the wine corks making up the wall here.

Just Dave prepares to fill his Platypus with water.

Gummi Women and the Goat Rocks

Nothing particularly noteworthy
about the views.... as of yet!

September 3: I was a bit excited about today. Today, I would enter the famous Goat Rocks Wilderness. I've heard about this wilderness mecca before, and it sounds absolutely wonderful, and the pictures I've seen absolutely gorgeous, but somehow, over all these years, I've never made it to the Goat Rocks myself. Today, that would finally change. I was pretty excited about it. =)

I left from my camp at Killen Creek with very little water, planning to stock up at Lava Springs. It seemed like everyone I talked to on the trail was excited about the wonderful water at this spring. Even Erik the Black gave the spring two thumbs up in his guidebook. I had to see what everyone was talking about. I couldn't imagine why this particular water source would be so wonderful, but I'd get to the bottom of it. Yes, I would get to the bottom of it.

Clearing up to be a
beautiful day!

When I arrived at the springs, I found Elk--still camped nearby from the night before. Obviously, in no rush to get anywhere. But it was Elk! My God! I hadn't seen him since.... *thinking back* I think the last time I saw him was way back in Warner Springs when I showed him how to carve stamps. It was an unexpected encounter, and I wanted to know all about his trip so far. He had hiked north as far as Seiad Valley, but was so far behind where he was "supposed" to be, he jumped ahead to the Canadian border and started hiking southbound. A lot of hikers lagging near the end of the pack often make this decision since the snows in northern Washington generally come earlier and are more brutal than the snows in southern Oregon. It extends the hiking seasons slightly, and increases their chances of finishing the entire trail.

I offered Elk a naked gummi lady. Amanda found them on a trip to Germany and thought I might enjoy them. =) I offered one to Elk, which he really liked and told me that he was going to suck the toes of the gummi lady first. "Okay," I replied, "I didn't need to know that."

I filled up with water from Lava Springs, which tasted exactly like all of the other water I've had on the trail. I still don't understand the fuss that this water created. Who started the legend of the amazing water here? Why? I don't know.... But it tasted like any other spring water I'd find on the trail. *shrug* Which is good, but nothing extraordinary.

Would you suck
her toes?

It was good bumping into Elk, but I sat around talking with him a lot longer than I planned to stop at Lava Springs. The Goat Rocks were ahead! I asked Elk if they were everything I always heard, but he said he didn't know--he hiked through in the rain and snow (snow?!) and couldn't see a thing more than three feet away. Bummer. "The views of Mount Adams are awesome!" I told him, giving him something to look forward to. =)

Elk and I parted ways, him heading southbound, and me heading northbound, and I finally entered into the Goat Rocks Wilderness. To start with, I wasn't impressed. It was mostly a bunch of trees, and when I got to a viewpoint, the views of Mount Adams behind me were better than the views of the Goat Rocks.

I stopped for a lunch break later in the afternoon, eating my usual assortment of Wheat Thins, Jelly Bellies, and a few gummi women. And I couldn't help but thinking, "I should suck her toes." Damn Elk. I sucked on the toes of a gummi woman for several seconds, but didn't find it very satisfying and ate the rest of it instead.

Late in the afternoon, the trail climbed up and over a ridge to a fantastic view. "Now THAT'S what I'm talking about!" I shouted into the distance. It's the kind of view that words and photos could never capture. A deep valley, with a long waterfall cascading down the other side of it, and views that seemed to go for a hundred miles. I noticed several white spots in the distance that seemed out of place, and stopped to get a better look. When I noticed one of the white spots moving. Goats! I found goats! I guess I shouldn't have been surprised--I was in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, after all, but it seemed entirely too easy to find the goats. I wasn't even trying!

Finally! In the Goat Rocks!

I continued along the trail, coming closer and closer to the goats, and more details emerged. There were a lot of them--more seemed to pop out of the bushes with every step. And some of the goats were babies. Adorable! The trail came quite close to them, and I started worrying that maybe I was getting a bit too close to the goats, but they eventually decided the same thing and skedaddled away from me further down the valley and away from the trail. From a distance I could finally see the entire herd and sat down to count them: seventy. Seventy goats! They didn't stand still much, so I counted again, and again got the number seventy. If my count was off, it certainly wasn't by much. Wow! A herd of 70 goats! Or whatever a group of goats is called. I bet there's a word for it and I don't know it. =)

The hike must go on, and that's what I did. About ten minutes later, I rounded another bend in the trail and found more goats. Another herd?! These goats weren't on the trail, though, off to the side on an adjacent slope, and I counted them too: 22 goats. I've now found 92 goats within a half hour time span. "This place is awesome!"

I finally set up camp at the Cispus River. Just Dave was already there, cooking dinner, along with a family out for the weekend (a dad with his daughter and son) from Vancouver, WA. The family started a campfire, and Just Dave and I joined in telling them about our adventures on the trail.

I planned to camp under the stars tonight--the first night for quite some time now--but changed my mind when I finally left the campfire to go to sleep. It wasn't even fully dark yet and a surprisingly thick layer of condensation had already formed on my gear. It was going to be a wet night, even if it didn't rain. I already set up my camp well away from the few scraggly trees in the area, and I didn't feel like moving camp to set up my tarp. Rather than doing that, I picked out a piece of the firewood that hadn't been used to prop up one side of my tarp. Usually I attach it to a tree and use my trekking pole for the other end, but I used firewood to prop up the other end of my tarp this time, saving myself the effort of moving camp closer to the trees.

Views south towards Mt. Adams
were better than forward into
the Goat Rocks. At first....

I didn't camp under the stars this night, but I did occasionally peak out of my tarp to a spectacular view of the stars throughout the night. Stunning. Absolutely stunning. And each time I checked, I could see a thick layer of fog creeping up the valley from the west. "Stay away," I whispered to it. "Just stay away. I want to see the rest of the Goat Rocks."

At least I'm out of the trees and have views now! =)

But I still found myself looking back at Mt. Adams than the scenery ahead.

I wonder what's just over this ridge?

Almost over the hump.....

Goats! Lots and lots of goats!

I can't say I got any GOOD pictures of the goats.
It was late in the day and the light was bad.

This is the second herd of goats I found.
They weren't as close as that first herd, though.

Goat Rocks--AWESOME!!!!