A Romp Through the West
Day 140
Miles: 9
From mirror lake to Snoqualmie Pass (Issaquah)
Our alarm has gone off, and we can hear the soft noises of 3D getting up and packing her things. We follow suit, sorting out our gear in the early morning light in record time. CrackerJack has emerged from his tent and has his music going. J and I munch down our last two clif bars.
The sun is just up as we head out. The sunlight on the mountains above the lake reflects back – damn if it isn’t a good day for hiking.
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Day 140
Miles: 18
From small creek to mirror lake
At first glance the morning looks as miserable as the day before, thick with heavy fog, the underside of our tarp drenched with condensation. And then a brilliant beam of light bursts into our little blue silnylon bedroom. The sun!
It doesn’t last long – as soon as the sun rises above the ceiling of clouds it’s back to gray – but it’s not raining. I’ll take it. We get up and start packing up our soggy camp, put on damp clothes and wet shoes. Crackerjack, 3D, Tintin, and Smokey all made camp with us at the same like creek-side and it’s a cheerful morning. Crackerjack has his music playing, and despite being from Germany, his playlist is an exact replica of my favorite radio station as a freshman in high school.
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Day 139
Miles: 25
Small creek to more of the same
As soon as my exhaustion has abated, I wake up. I feel tired and dirty and sticky. My crotch feels dirty and sticky. Unwashed. Itchy. I’m unbearably uncomfortable, and I toss and rearrange myself until J wakes up to. “What’s going on?” he murmurs.
“It’s two in the morning, but all I can think about is washing my crotch,” I whisper.
“Maybe washing your crotch at two in the morning is what you need to do then,” he mumbles back, turning over.
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Day 138
Miles: 21
From Dewey Lake to small creek
The lake is quivering but still this morning, the sky grayer than yesterday. We can still hear the elk calling to each other like they did last night, an eerie serenade. Having not seen an elk in the act of bugling (or, any elk at all), I still have a hard time believing that these alien cries come from a furry earth-bound herbivore.
The low skies of the morning just remind us of the weather forecast we looked at back at White Pass. Forecast: rain’s a’comin. In the Northwest, once the rain starts… that might be it for our blue skies until spring. Or it might not. We talk about it with our fellow hikers when we cross paths on the trail, optimistically framed – “Well, wouldn’t want to have carried this damn umbrella for 2000 miles for nothing!” we tell each other.
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Day 137
Miles: 19
From Pipe Lake to Dewey Lake
In the middle of the night I get up to pee, trying not to trip on the tarp guylines (I always trip on the tarp guylines) and look up. Even with my eyes blurred over with sleep, I am staggered. The stars! I have one of those rare glimpses into eternity, a split-second flash where I really understand how big infinity is, and then I’ve lost it again. I walk to the shore of the lake and sit on a rock for a few minutes and look at the sky, cold and tired. Amazed at the universe. Amazed I exist. Humbled to be here.
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Day 136
Miles: 10
From Ginette Lake to Pipe Lake
Town, town, town, town, town! Many possibilities, only two miles to get to White Pass. We pass by Pigpen and Kentucky on our way out – they had come in late last night and camped nearby.
We arrive at the small convenience store and motel that is about all there is to White Pass and find the place chock-full of hikers. It’s all the hikers that had left Trout Lake the same day as us. Apparently they then hiked huge miles and blasted through Goat Rocks, then been exhausted and gotten rooms at the motel and stayed the night. I don’t really understand the philosophy of hiking big miles through really beautiful, amazing places, and then taking time off in town to recover, but it’s a classic thru-hiker move. Strange. Done it myself. Can’t tell you why.
Day 134
Miles: 19
From camp by Snowgrass Meadow trail junction to Ginette Lake.
When my first alarm goes off at 6:15 I hop straight out of bed, pee, then… then I ruin a good thing and crawl straight back into my sleeping bag. An hour later I figureI really should get up. We’re now closer to the fall equinox than the summer solstice, and we’re losing daylight. Only a few minutes less a day – but it’s starting to cut into our hiking time. I should stop wasting it on the front end.
The two weekenders gift us the remnants of their instant espresso mix and powdered milk (caffeine! woohoo!) and we start off. The best part of Goat Rocks Wilderness is supposedly waiting for us this morning.
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Day 134
Miles: 18
From the ponds to Snowgrass Meadow
We start the day with our faces in blueberry bushes. Although I don’t know if “bush” is the right word – the teeny plants next to the ponds are only a few inches high. That just makes it all the more surprising that they are so prolific. I wonder why some patches are so flush with the little blue gems, but most of the blueberry bushes we pass have no blueberries at all. It makes it difficult to tear myself away from a good patch… who knows how many miles to the next one?
We get stuck in another patch, then in a huckleberry patch. Then the view opens up for a minute, gives us a glimpse through the trees, and – there is Mt Adams again. Still with us.
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Day 133
Miles: 17
From lava flow campsite to tiny lakes
The last warmth in the black lava rock surrounding our campsite has disappeared by the morning, and the sun has not yet risen above the mountain. It’s great tongue of ice, the Mt Adams glacier, is a massive tumble of ice that looks frozen in time and not just in temperature. The trail, too, is frozen, with a deep frost in the loose dirt that has formed into feathers and fibers of ice that crunch underfoot. I had thought that I’d overpacked on clothes when I left Portland, but I think now I may have brought just enough.
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Day 132
Miles: 11.5
From Trout Lake to campsite on old lava flow
The monastery hostel has big picture windows and no shades, facing northeast to Mt Adams. I ditched J in the middle of the night for my own twin mattress, but as day creeps up on us he sneaks back in beside me, and we watch the great face of the mountain turn towards the sun.
We have hot tea and sausage, eggs, toast, fruit, hash browns, and conversation for breakfast. Kozen sits down and eats with us. (I wonder if he considers this breakfast? He’s been up in prayers since 3am.) He chats with us about the trail, life, religion, and then completely floors us asking: “Does this journey have a spiritual component for you two?”
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