Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass via the PCT Day 1of 5

It started off as an early Sunday morning drive north to meet up with Dicentra. I got a late start out the door to head north to meet up with Dicentra, but made it to her house on time, yet we still got a late start to the trail head. Dicentra's husband dropped us off at the trail head at Snoqualmie Pass so that we could start our journey. The plan was to hike an average of 15 miles a day to cover the 75 mile journey to Stevens Pass. I was really hoping to get a lot more fishing in on the trip, but in retrospect I wish I would of left the fishing gear at home... I would of saved nearly a pound of weight and the cost of the 5 sacrificial flies I lost to the bush gods...

We got on the trail around 9 am and started moseying up the climb to Kendall's Catwalk.

Dicentra and I at the trail head.

A pretty cool looking peak surrounded in the fog on the way up.

Entering the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

We ran into this kind fellow Mr. Zip along the way up. He's hiked the whole Appalachian Trail and is segmenting the PCT 900 miles at a time, so that he isn't away from his wife near as long as he would be on a full thru hike. He had some awesome stories of his travels that were really motivating and after he passed us at Kendall's Catwalk, we'd be a couple miles behind him the whole way. Sadly we did not catch back up to him.

Dicentra in an opening on the way to the catwalk.

Some of the trail in the trees on the way up to the catwalk.
Me trekking along towards the catwalk.
One of the clear sections, with a lot of great views.



Where's Jared? Can you find me?

Just before the catwalk.
Red Mountain from the catwalk area.
Dicentra and I at the catwalk. Here we took a good long lunch and b.s.'d with the local day hikers. Talked to a couple people and a few previous Wonderland hikers. This was also the area that Mr. Zip passed us for the last time. From the catwalk we could see 90% of our route for the day, including the pass we had to cross to get to Parks Lake. As cool as it was to see the route as an all open traverse, it really made everything seem right there, but in reality it was so far away...

Heading towards Gravel and Ridge lakes.
Dicentra coming down into the Ridge Lake basin area.
Ridge Lake

Looking out and down the valley towards Cle-Elum above Joe Lake. The far right edge of this photo is the pass that we had to make it to in order to access the Parks Lake Basin. Just under the cliff bands is the traverse to the pass. An hour or so before we got to this spot we saw a Search and Rescue helocopter circling for a long time trying to get someone out of the area.
Taking a break for Salami and Cheese, and realizing that with the late start and the slower pace we'd be pushing into Parks Lake in the dark with our headlamps on...


Yeah... So we came around the corner and the trail shot straight up and turned into boulders. I won't even repeat what Dicentra said at this point...An interesting rock formation near Needle Gap area.
I was either taking pictures of something or trying to send a message out to say we are alive and well.
Shortly after this the sun was setting as we hit Chikiman Ridge above Parks Lake Basin. About halfway down we caught a stream and gathered some water. We rolled into camp under the cover of darkness with our headlamps blaring, while trying to find a suitable campsite. By this point Dicentra got sick, and was having a not so pleasant night. After we found camp I cooked dinner, setup the bivy and tied off the Ursacks to a tree and than I passed out. To be continued on day 2's page.

Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass via the PCT Day 2of 5

Day 2 started off with a great dry morning. No real dew to report and my muscles were a little sore from the wake up call after 15 miles on the up hill. Dicentra seemed to be feeling a little better in the morning, but was still not in tip top stomach shape. So we packed up camp and I ate a PB Crunch Wrap and we were on the road.


Is it really morning already...
Part of the awesome view I had all night! The pass we crossed the night before is just to the left and out of the picture. Did I ever mention how I love sleeping in a bivy?
Makeshift campsite above Parks Lakes.
PB Crunch Wrap
I ran up to the little stream that we got water from last night in hope of some water since I was down to just under a liter and the next "running" water was about 3.4 miles away at Delate Creek. With no avail. when I arrived at the little stream... It was running well the previous night cause the sun had been beating down on the snow pack above and overnight it became a trickle. So we headed off above Park Lakes and past some ponds that were iffy and started to climb before the bone jarring 2200' endless switchbacks all the way down to the Lemah Creek Valley. Along these switchbacks we got several great views over Spectacle Lake.

Spectacle Lake
Right before Delate Creek we ran into a girl with her not so friendly dog off of a leash. Albeit she was cute and alone she should of had better voice control over the dog, per regulations. The dog raised it's hair, came at me in a defensive and scared manner and kind nipped in my direction. Luckily after a bunch of calls from the owner the dog finally backed off before I had to introduce it to the carbide tips on my trekking poles. Up and to this point we had only ran into non-defensive and friendly dogs. All dogs per NFS regs must be under complete voice control or on a leash, friendly dogs are another story. So at Delate Creek we topped off our water, snacked on some food and headed back down the trail.

On the Delate Creek Bridge.
Getting ready to take off from Delate Creek.
We ran into what appeared to be a small boyscout troop doing a 50 miler. I really felt sorry for the last guy in the pack who was falling back and gasping for air trying to ask me how far until the lake... They were all carrying 5+ lb tents and a ton of duplicate gear, the kid's pack looked like it weighed about as much as him... After that we ran into some more hikers and slowly wound down into the Lemah Creek area. We approached the trail junction that had the "difficult" crossing reroute signs for the upper Lemah Creek bridge. We opted to not take the bypass and ford the "difficult" crossing. We did not want to add the mileage or the extra elevation loss and gain since we still had a 5 mile climb to reach the top of Escondido Ridge. On the way to the Lemah Creek crossing we stumbled across a natural burning forest fire. It was slowly burning the underbrush along the trail. Shortly after passing the fire we reached Lemah Creek. There was this huge bridge that was washed out. We got down to the creek and laughed... It was such a difficult crossing with the planks from the old bridge lain across some rocks... We didn't even get our feet wet. If the planks wouldn't have been there it was still only mid calve deep. We stopped for some more snacks/lunch and were back on the way towards Escondido Ridge.

Wildfire and Bridge out warnings...
Fire a burning alongside the trail.
Dicentra crossing the "Dangerous" Crossing at Lemah Creek.

After crossing the North Fork of the Lemah creek the trail started to climb... 5 miles of really long, barely climbing switch backs with more and more exposure as we went up, at mid day it was near torture... It was warm, the sun was beating down and we were climbing for 3 to 4 hours...





We finally crested and got on top of the ridge! What a view, craggy peaks all around and a barren terrain covered in Heather, dead trees from the Waptus Burn and Huckleberries bushes. Somewhere near the first set of tarns we ran into a couple kids that asked some odd and disheartening questions. They started out from Stevens Pass, were in all cotton, stuff was hanging precariously off of both of their packs, and the question that really shocked us... "Do you guys no where the next lake is? cause that is where we would like to camp." Uh... don't you have a map... Ah it's about 6 to 7 miles down the trail and 2200' down, mind you the sun was starting to set... You won't make it, there is some camps just over there or there is a very small camp precariously set along side the trail that will maybe fit one tent... Can we say search and rescue case in the making... After that encounter we pressed on for a ways, until we found a fairly large error in "Erik the Black"'s PCT Atlas for campsites... So we had to make a stealth camp since it was getting dark and Dicentra was not feeling well again. We set up camp, I made dinner and went to bed. Little did I know there was one rock that fell into the hole that was made when I pulled out a large rock from under my bivy... I shifted the pad to get comfortable and heard a psssssssssssss, like the valve was open on the air mattress... I yelled over to Dicentra to ask for Duct Tape and sealed the inch long gash in my $110 Neoair mattress... It held air for the most part of the rest of the trip with the same piece of Duct Tape. It deflated a little overnight, but no more than requiring a couple added breaths around 3am every night.

Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass via the PCT day 3 of 5

Day 3 we awoke semi early and tore down our stealth camp and moved closer to the trail to have breakfast. During breakfast we ran into some more section hikers, and some odd balls that were camped up further in another stealth camp. They were all wearing the same Golite Jam 2 packs, the baseball caps with the ear flaps and even the clothing was fairly matchy, matchy. We just laughed and they jetted on by. I enjoyed a cup of coffee and another no cook breakfast and we were on the way.

The patched hole on my sleeping pad, it was a fairly sharp and large rock that shifted and poked a 1" gash... Now I need to buy a repair patch from thermorest.

The view for my morning Java Juice, can't really beat it.
Shortly there after we hit the other side of the ridge and we started down another set of really long switchbacks all the way down to the Waptus River. We came across the tools of a trail repair party along the way down, but we did not see anyone other than the fact that the trail was no longer as over grown. Yeah, no more bush whacking for a little while.

Dicentra above Waptus Lake.
Waptus Lake from above.
Some horse packers that we ran into on the way down Escondido.
When we hit the river I saw a large hole in the river and pulled out the fishing gear. I fished for awhile and than joined Dicentra for lunch on the other side of the bridge. I decided to do some laundry and did some runs back and forth from the bushes to the river to collect water while cleaning some socks and my shirt and such. I hung all the clothes on the elastic hang line on the back of my pack and we were on the way.

Looking up stream at the Waptus River, I had to stop and fish for a little while.
Unloading the fishing gear on the bank.
The clothes hanging off of my pack on the hang line after doing my laundry.
After about a mile or so we crossed one of the last creeks until we started to climb up to Deep Lake. The water got filled and the feet got taped. I was starting to get a faint blister beneath a really heavy callous. So I wrapped them to help reduce the rubbing for the climb to the lake.



After awhile we hit the climb and kept on trucking till the trail started to open up a little and we were greeted with some great views of the surrounding ridges and Cathedral Rock. After some more switchbacks we finally crested out and were meandering towards the lake.


We crossed a creek and hit the junction to camp. Here we saw 3 matching 2 person Kelty tents... Suspecting it was actually the group we saw that was all matchy matchy on Escondido Ridge we pressed on. About here was a sign that said something about extremely fragile meadows and fragile area beyond this sign, No Stock or Horses beyond this point... So what do we see a couple feet after the sign... A group of horse packers with their horses tied off along a narrow trail adjacent to the fragile meadow. The one foot wide path was now 6 to 7 feet wide and all the shrubbery was destroyed... It's these types of people that are the 10% that will wreak it for the rest of the horse packers. We setup camp a lady who was solo hiking this section. ROCK ON! She had a bivouac set up along side the lake! We chatted with her for a bit before she sat down and read a book for a long while. I started to do some fishing on a rock, where I had to ask the guy nearby, who was just camped out in his sleeping bag near the rock, if it was alright if I fished there. I didn't catch anything, especially since all the fish were a rising a good 60 to 100 feet out and I didn't have enough room for that much of a backcast. So I headed back to camp after another lost fly to the bushes and made dinner.

The last creek crossing before camp, note the mosquito head netting...

Just after the junction to camp we were treated with this great view of Cathedral Rock over the lake. The pass to the right of Cathedral is where we were starting to climb first thing in the morning.
Dicentra's Rainbow tent, my fishing pole, our neighbor and you can barely see my bivy next to my pack and water bladder.
Enjoying my dinner.
I sat around and talked to Dicentra for awhile during dinner and than I finished setting up my bivy. I preceded to pass out for awhile, and than I woke up several times to some of the most beautiful skies that I have ever seen.