As I entered the trees, I realized how wet it truly was out there. Sure, the quick jaunt down the road, between the hotel and the trailhead (a distance of less than half a mile), had been misty, with thin sheets of cold wetness wafting over me as each car passed. But there, the wetness was approaching from a defined direction and in predictable intervals. In the trees, however, the wetness seemed to launch a full-on assault from every direction in more of a guerilla-style approach. Sometimes I would pass through misty micro-clouds, just above ground level. Sometimes the wind would blow sharply, and the trees would dump large, cold drops from above directly onto my head, or even more commonly, directly to impact with my ears, nose, or glasses. Still other times, I would pass out of the trees for a moment to cross a ski run, and a sudden horizontal burst of wind would swirl a fine mist up and over the ridge and directly into my face. The entire time, I found myself wading through a sea of waterlogged undergrowth that seemed intent on ensuring that my feet remained frigidly soggy for at least the next few days. I thought about Stray-Cat and T-Rex. They had arrived at Snoqualmie pass yesterday and had been less eager to venture out into this mess today. As I left, they were still sitting by the front window in the restaurant, assessing the situation. Smart. I was officially drenched.
Throughout the morning, I climbed up through the ski runs, then followed the side of the high ridge within sight and earshot of the western stretches of Interstate 90, several thousand feet down into the valley below. This wasn’t the untouched, pristine wilderness that I had hiked through in the weeks prior. Passing under several high-voltage powerlines, the humming and clicking of the current blended with the distant roar of the highway trucks into a melody of human progress, mixed with the sorrowful, harmonic tones of wilderness destruction. I passed several deer, all of which were completely unphased by my presence. Who knows if they even heard me coming, but once they spotted me, they were content to continue grazing. They had tolerated the intrusion of human impact into their home for their whole lives, to the point where they probably didn’t even notice it anymore. To me, however, the result was obvious. They were less cautious, less observant, and not as easily frightened by my sudden presence. They behaved more human-like and had lost some of the most apparent natural traits of their species. Even as several loud day hikers came walking by, with their dog running free, the deer simply minded their own business. Several miles passed and the roar of civilization faded slightly. Passing Mirror Lake as the sun began to break through a hole in the clouds, I decided that a few more miles would be sufficient for the day, and soon, I was venturing out into the tall, wind-blown grasses of a boggy meadow just across from Twilight Lake. A small mound in the middle of the large clearing would make a perfect campsite, surrounded by the relative peacefulness of the quiet but-not-quite-silent clearing.
By sunrise, it occurred to me that camping in the meadow, or bog, or clearing, or whatever this area was, had been a bad idea. A thick layer of frost had settled on my tent (inside and outside), my sleeping bag, my shoes, my pack, and just about everything else. Even as the blinding sun rose triumphantly over the still, foggy waters of the nearby pond, the frost and ice seemed to latch onto most surfaces more than ever. I briefly attempted to brush my tent off, but soon I was stuffing my tent and everything else, frost and all, into my pack and hoofing it on down the trail, trying to regain feeling in my frozen, aching hands. About a mile down the trail, I passed the campsite that I had been shooting for last night. It was a little more than a wide spot in the trail beside an overgrown creek bed. Overall, I was glad that I had decided to camp where I did. Soon, I passed Stray-Cat and T-Rex as they enjoyed a late breakfast at a small overlook. They had, in fact, eventually decided to head out yesterday afternoon and had made it to Mirror Lake last night. I was glad that someone out here was headed in the same direction as me, and I looked forward to keeping close to the same pace throughout this segment of trail. I may enjoy the solitude of the wilderness, but it is nice to have people to talk to occasionally instead of settling for one-sided conversations with inanimate objects.
Just like yesterday, most of the day was spent within earshot of the interstate, but instead of watching the highway twist toward the west, into the mountains, I could now follow it as it stretched out toward the east, through the foothills of the eastern cascades, and eventually into the flatlands of central and eastern Washington. Throughout the day, it seemed as if the path of the trail was on the verge of shifting from the Cascade crest into the gentler eastern foothills. The mountains that I was now walking through, at least compared to where I had been, barely seemed like mountains at all. The rolling, green terrain stretched out from beneath my feet. Gone were the scree fields, but in their place were endless networks of gravel roads. Gone were the tumbling creeks and streams, and in their place were wide clear-cuts for miles of high voltage transmission lines. Instead of craggy cliffs and rocky ridgelines, most of the forested mountainsides had been clear-cut within the last few decades. Each hilltop was crested with a small patch of noticeably taller tree-growth, while everywhere else was covered in unimpressive and often unhealthy looking first-growth forest. Whether as a result of the whine of ATVs down in the valleys, or the hundreds of “No Trespassing” signs posted by the city of Seattle around the boundary of their precious watershed (I didn’t take much!), human impact was consistently evident. From a single vantage point around midday, I could see the jagged towers and ridgelines of The Enchantments and Cashmere Crags to the northeast, and I began to long for true wilderness again. Late in the afternoon, I collected a couple liters of water from a stagnant trailside puddle and made my camp along the side of the gravel road at Tacoma Pass. Stray-Cat and T-Rex arrived around dark, just in time to appreciate the regularly intermittent passing of fast-moving vehicles through the evening and into the night.
I awoke in the morning to ominously dim skies. Great. After the clear skies of yesterday, I had nearly forgotten about the prospect of rain in the forecast. Stray-Cat and T-Rex were already gone, and I packed up quickly as the wind began to blow through the trees. Leaving camp, I passed another tent, several hundred yards down the trail, and felt about five drops of rain. Luckily though, the sky decided not to break open quite yet, so I enjoyed the next few hours of cool and breezy weather. Around four miles from Tacoma Pass, I caught up with Stray-Cat and T-Rex and learned that they had left almost two hours before me. As some of the older hikers on the trail, they were anything but fast, but they typically walked from sunrise to sunset (and often longer than that) and end up covering roughly the same daily mileage that I usually completed in about eight hours of walking. Stopping to chat with them for a while, we agreed that the weather outlook didn’t look good, and decided to shoot for the Mike Urich snowmobile shelter tonight. If it was going to rain for the next three days, we would be better off having at least one night with a roof over our heads.
The forest and the overall “feel” here reminded me of the Smokies. The trail was basically a green tunnel through the trees. The overcast skies reached down to ground level in a smoky, hazy, fog that felt thick in my lungs. The rolling hills were silent, sealed in by the descending sky. In the stillness of early afternoon, two large owls called out as they headed higher into the hazy canopy on swift and silent wings. A little while later, I heard rustling in the bushes and spotted a hunter as he emerged from behind a tree. Eventually, as I climbed up and over the last steep (but not particularly high) pass, the air began to fill with mist. Donning my rain jacket and rain pants, I continued on through the drip, crossing several gravel roads as I approached the shelter. Unlike the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail only has a handful of these shelters, most of which are purposed specifically for winter recreation but made available to hikers in the warmer season. Also, unlike the AT, most shelters along the PCT are larger, with more amenities. As I discovered upon arrival, this particular shelter included benches, a table, a wood burning stove, and a nearby privy. Plus, as an added bonus, both the shelter and privy were fully enclosed! With front doors! That’s nearly unheard of on the AT! I enjoyed several hours of solitude before others began to trickle in, and by sunset, there were a total of eight NOBOs plus myself and Stray-Cat and T-Rex, all hunkered down out of the rain.
Several times throughout the night, I awoke to the pounding rain on the metal roof and the stench of marijuana wafting up to the loft area where all but a few of us were sleeping. Judging by the sound of the rain, I was thankful to have a roof over my head, but by the first sign of sunrise, I was ready to escape the earthy reek of what they describe as a “good time.” I was still exhausted as I stepped outside, having gotten very little quality sleep in such an active environment, but at least I was dry. For the moment. Within half a mile, I was forced to make a pit stop. Sure, there had been a privy near the shelter (there had actually been two) but sometimes it’s just not worth it. Most of the time, I’ll take a secluded hillside over a disgusting pit any day of the week, but steady rain levels the playing field a little. Soon, I was moving again and making my way up and over the next climb and into an old burn area from the late eighties. Despite its age, most of the land was still bare, indicating the intensity of the fire. For a short stretch, the trail followed an actively eroding ridgeline that appeared to be hours or days away from the next major mudslide. Even on the more moderate slopes, the land was scarred, with only a scattering of charred tree skeletons and a few weeds and low-growing shrubs.
As the morning passed to midday, the temperature seemed to drop. What had been a damp, chilly morning was now a wet and cold afternoon. I was already wearing my rain jacket and pants, but I now added another layer under my rain jacket and a pair of yellow rubber gloves that I had bought at the Snoqualmie Pass Chevron for exactly this purpose. The wind began to pick up as I crossed through a large basin and began to climb up again, toward a jagged crest that the trail would follow for several miles. Soon, the cold had transitioned to frigid and the wet had begun to diversify itself with rain, snow and sleet, all at the same time. As the trail crossed from one side of the crest to the other, the wind buffeted straight up out of the valleys, carrying with it an icy cloud of wetness. In a deep valley, far below to the west, I could see a small ski resort. It was sunny there, and I could only dream of such comfort and warmth. Finally, the trail crossed from the ridge to a high basin and began to climb sharply in a counterclockwise direction toward the crest of Sourdough Gap. Visibility began to drop drastically. By the time the climb was behind me, I could barely see twenty feet ahead. Looking down into the southern basin, I knew that Sheep Lake was only a couple hundred feet below me, but my sight was limited to an expansive void of grayness.
Descending quickly, the wind began to fade and finally, the lake came into view. Meandering around the lakeshore for what seemed like an eternity, I struggled to find a suitable campsite for the current and impending weather conditions. There seemed to be one excellent site which was already taken, and all other sites seemed mediocre at best. Many had puddles of standing water or were on small hills out in the open, completely exposed. Finally, I found a decent site and called it a day. It was still raining, but the snow had stopped for the moment as I struggled to set up my tent without getting everything completely soaked. At one point, the weekend backpacker who had claimed the best campsite wandered over, wearing nothing more than a t-shirt, gym shorts, and flip-flops, and struck up a conversation. Apparently, he had hiked in for the night from Chinook Pass (about five miles) but had forgotten his sleeping bag. His plan was to stay there for the night as long as he could stay warm, but he didn’t seem too worried about possibly needing to head back to the truck if things got dicey. I wished I had that luxury. I wanted to ask him how he wasn’t already hypothermic in this weather with what he was wearing, but instead, I cut the conversation short, crawled into my tent, and burrowed into my sleeping bag as I ate dinner.
Rain and sleet continued on and off (but mostly on) for most of the night, and while I stayed dry in my sleeping bag, everything else was uncomfortably damp if not totally soaked. Still, I attempted to pack up everything before emerging from my tent. As I finally headed south, toward Chinook Pass, I was officially in a foul mood. I was wet, cold, and generally discouraged. The guy with no sleeping bag was gone. I wondered how many hours he had made it last night, with the temperatures dipping into the high thirties. I was initially drawn by the temptation of a road crossing and the possibility of a bailing out to town, but I quickly managed my expectations. I would make it to White Pass early tomorrow, it would be much easier to go into town from there than it would be from here. Plus, today was supposed to be the last day of rain according to my Garmin, which is historically inaccurate. As I closed in on Chinook Pass, I passed more and more day-hikers. Clean and well-rested with dry feet, they served as a brutal reminder of the fact that I had chosen this. I didn’t have to be that miserable. I could hitch a ride into town from there and be home, with a warm bed and good food, within a couple days. But, I reminded myself, I hadn’t chosen this path because I thought it would be easy. In fact, I had chosen this, in part, because it would be hard, and uncomfortable, and just plain miserable at times. Reaching the road, I crossed over it on a wooden bridge with the words “Mt Rainier National Park” inscribed on its span. I lifted my eyes toward the west, toward the big mountain. All I could see was gray mist.
I thought I was already cold. I thought I was already wet. I thought that I was just about as miserable as I could possibly be, but what I discovered as I entered the outskirts of Mt Rainier National Park, was that I was just scraping the surface of true misery. The trail had now merged with several horse trails, and the rocky treadway had transitioned quickly to a sea of mud. This path was well used. No, overused. Any trail in such a condition, especially an easily accessible trail in a national park, is likely not in such poor condition due to lack of maintenance, but rather as a result of the thousands and thousands of visitors that travel along it in any given year. National parks generally attempt to maintain their trails, at least the more popular ones, in a consistent manner, but all too often they still ultimately erode into oblivion. As I walked, slowly now so as not to fall face-first into the turbid, amorphous liquid that stretched out along the path before me, I passed a handful of hikers. Most were struggling to remain upright just like me. I took a step, planted my foot, and slid as if on ice. I took another step, lifted my rear foot, and the suction of the slosh took my shoe right off. Scrambling to remain upright on one foot, while stretching to retrieve my other shoe from the clutches of the trail proved to be a nearly impossible task. I felt myself beginning to fall, and reached out to catch myself, plunging my hand deep into the ankle-deep slosh that consisted of a large percentage of rehydrated horse manure, blended to disgusting perfection with many other unidentified organic materials into a greenish-brown paste. Let’s just say that I wasn’t a happy camper. I eventually able to retrieve my shoe, but I was now covered in a thin coat of brown sludge. At least the rain would eventually wash it off. On many slopes throughout the morning, the trail had lost so much structural integrity that I initiated small mudslides as I walked. I pressed on, swearing loudly as if a little profanity (ok, a lot of profanity) would cause the sky to clear and the trail to dry out. It didn’t help much in that regard, but I did feel a little better after blowing off some steam.
Through frigidly wet valleys and around foggy lakes I walked, trying to ignore my aching fingers and numb feet. I stopped for less than five minutes for a brief rest and then continued on. It was too cold to walk, but even colder to stop. Trying to buckle my hip belt, I realized painfully that I didn’t have enough manual dexterity or strength left in my fingers to get it to latch. Eventually, I was able to loosen it a bit, latch it, and then use my teeth to pull it back tight. My fingers were useless, and stumbling through the rain, I was at the point of no longer caring. Suddenly, through the sound of the rain on my hood, I heard crashing in the trees. I looked ahead, straining to see through the mist. I saw movement, moving down the slope, from my left, toward the trail. The shrill wail of an elk’s bugle pierced the air. In that moment, the largest bull elk that I have ever seen stepped out onto the trail, completely unaware of my presence. I froze. Turning to his right and taking a step toward me along the trail, he lifted his massive head and bugled again. Unsure of what to do, I clicked my trekking poles against each other. I now had his attention, as he began to take several more steps in my direction, clearly agitated. To my knowledge, elk are not generally aggressive toward humans, but the males do become irritable and aggressive towards one another during the mating season, or the “rut,” and we were now in the midst of the elk rut. I had been hearing the bugles of solitary males in the early mornings and late evenings for several days now and had been walking up on groups of cows with their yearling calves for even longer. This, however, was a new experience. Elk will typically keep their distance, but this particular bull was clearly upset. I hoped that he didn’t perceive me as a threat. Avoiding eye contact and continuing to click my trekking poles together didn’t seem to deter him, and he continued in my direction.
Suddenly, he began to kick the ground several times (Uh-oh!) and then charged (Oh, crap!). I yelled out. I always try my best to respect the fact that all wild animals are unpredictable, but it never occurred to me that I would get charged by an elk. In that instant, I pictured myself being impaled and trampled by the animal. Nope. Not today. I hadn’t walked all this way to go out like that. I knew I needed to do something; I just wasn’t sure what that something was. Closing in on me quickly, he abruptly skidded to a halt, no more than fifteen feet away, and bugled again. It had been a bluff charge, but I wasn’t in the clear yet. I still had at least a thousand pounds of bull elk staring me down from close range and he wasn’t happy. He began to stomp and kick again. I knew that another charge, bluff or not, probably wouldn’t end well for me. Against my better judgement, I locked eyes with the creature. Yes, I know they say to never make direct eye contact with a wild animal, especially one that’s threatening you, but I did it anyway, half expecting to see the expression of a beast, full of aggression and rage. What I witnessed, though, was an expression of fear. In that moment, I understood. The frightening actions of this animal were not born of anger or wrath, but simply uneasy distress. He didn’t want to fight me, but he needed to know that I wasn’t a threat.
Breaking eye contact and taking a step backwards, I lowered myself to the ground and did something that I hoped he would understand: I leaned towards a huckleberry bush and began snapping twigs off and putting them in my mouth. Glancing at him from the corner of my eye, I began to make an exaggerated chewing motion, and glanced back quickly as he slowly turned away. In that moment, it became clear to him that I was not a threat to him or his harem. I was simply another forest creature, just trying to find enough to eat before winter set in. He seemed to understand. Finally moving away, the majestic creature trotted off the trail to my right and crossed through the valley below. Eventually, my heartrate slowed enough for me to have the presence of mind to pull out my phone and get a picture. For the rest of the day, I kept a vigilant watch on my surroundings. Large animals don’t typically frighten me, and I believe that, unless provoked, most (with a few notable exceptions) prefer to keep to themselves. Still, the sheer size of bull elks has remained a source of fear for me since that day. I don’t think they would ever intentionally attack without good reason, but as large as they are, it would be plausible for them to easily impale or trample a human without ever meaning to. Even as I arrived at camp that evening, alongside a creek and under the shelter of a particularly large Douglas Fir, I remained vigilant. If I can help it, I would strongly prefer to never sneak up on a bull elk again.
The rain remained light throughout the night and had stopped completely by sunrise. Everything was still wet, but it brought me substantial comfort to know that things weren’t actively getting any wetter. Taking the time to dry out the inside of my tent with my pack-towel, I enjoyed, for the first time in days, the warm rays of the sun as they stretched over the mountain top. It was going to be a good day. I had been keeping one pair of socks dry in my pack, but I decided to wear them, despite the fact that my shoes were still soaked. Dry socks, I’ve learned, are one of the greatest morale boosters that exist. Of course, I ended up slipping on a rock and dunking my entire right foot into the creek as I left camp. Oh well. At least I still had one semi-dry sock. The morning passed quickly as I hiked through damp meadows and past several small ponds. The sun was still struggled to pierce through the rising morning fog in some places, but in the gaps, the warmth of its rays was a welcome relief. I passed a NOBO hiker for the first time since the Mike Urich cabin, and we stopped to talk for a bit. Apparently, he and his crew had spent two days in Packwood and one more day in Yakima, trying to wait out the rainstorm. He had decided to come back to the trail today, but his friends were waiting one more day in Yakima. I mentioned that he was the first hiker I had seen in a while, and he didn’t seem surprised. Apparently, what I had just walked through was a major weather event, carefully anticipated and avoided by most NOBOs. I had originally been contemplating the possibility of going into Packwood for a night or two to dry out my gear, but from the sound of it, there would be several dry and sunny days in a row now. If I stopped early tonight, I could probably just dry everything out at camp. As he continued north, he stated that he was starting to feel the pressure of the changing seasons, the past few days had been the first early taste of winter and we both knew that there was more to come. At least I was headed south. Hopefully I would be able to outrun it a little longer.
Approaching White Pass, I began to pass a large number of day hikers, trail runners and hunters headed out for the day, and they all shot me incredulous glances as they passed. I definitely looked the part, muddy and disheveled from days of rain, but I was happy. Reaching Highway 12, I turned west along the road for a half mile and arrived at the White Pass Kracker Barrel. I had been warned to not expect much, but there was still even less than I expected. Basically, a glorified gas station, the store did stock a few more hiker-friendly items than most, and even had a dedicated “hiker area” outside with a power outlet, picnic tables, and two port-a-potties. After picking up my resupply box that I had shipped, I spent the next couple hours sorting and organizing. Eventually, I decided to hang around for lunch, and per another hiker’s recommendation, avoided the pizza. Instead, I bought a sandwich and a couple of old burritos from the food counter inside and thoroughly enjoyed the glorious game of Russian roulette that is the hearty indulgence in gas-station cuisine. A few minutes later, one of the employees emerged from the store to offer us leftover biscuits and gravy from breakfast for free. For free! The other hiker declined, but my hunger got the better of me. Four hard biscuits with gravy later, I headed out, and by the time I reached my planned campsite at Ginette Lake, just a couple miles up the trail, I was beginning to feel iffy. I spent the warm, sunny evening drying out my gear, and listening to the bugling of elk mixed with the sounds of my stomach rolling. Later in the evening, it became more and more obvious that I probably shouldn’t have eaten old biscuits and gravy from a gas station, but even the pains of mild food-poisoning couldn’t damper my spirits. Tomorrow, I would cross the famous Knife’s Edge in Goat Rocks Wilderness, after which the terrain would become quite mild for the final section of Washington, and according to the weather forecast, I would be out of Washington by the time the next storm hit. That was an outlook that made me happy. I just hoped I wouldn’t be trampled by an elk during the night.
