Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass via the PCT day 4 of 5

Day 4, started off as the most dewy day to date. My sleeping bag got slightly damp in the am cause I was in an open bug bivy and did not setup the tarp. So later in the day I had to lay it out in the sun to dry during a couple rest stops. Camp got packed up, we had some breakfast and chatted with our neighbor and than we were off to see the Horse's devastation... When we rounded the corner to the meadow, that was not supposed to have horses near it, there was all the horses free and trampling the meadows while the owners filmed the whole thing and let their dogs loose without any voice control over them... I have no qualms with horse packers in general, but this was a shock. I can look past a minimal impact fire in an area that won't really damage anything, hell, I can overlook a lot of small things... but holy crap, this was blatant disregard to a meadow that has a short growing season and was in recovery! This wasn't someone who setup a tent and maybe bent a few blades of grass in the meadow. You could see the dirt and grass being uprooted as the horses galloped and tromped through the fragile meadow which was signed for NO STOCK...

Deep Lake in the am.
The junction for camp with Cathedral Rock looming over Deep Lake.
Anyways after this shocking experience we headed out of the camp area and started the Ascent to Cathedral Pass. We were back into some gentle switchbacks and found a large rock outcropping to take a break and start the drying of my sleeping bag.

Teresa taking a break and my quilt inside out drying in the sun.
Shortly after the break we finished the climb to Cathedral Pass. The pass was beautiful and had great campsites abound. I would definitely have loved to camp up there, but it was a dry camp on the ridge, so water would of had to be packed up the hill. From here we gave Sarbar a call to see if we'd still be meeting her at Deception lakes and we also made calls out to our families to let them know we were still alive and well. Sarbar informed us that the temperatures were rising and that this particular day they had a red flag warning for the Cascades. After much deliberation Dicentra and I decided to take a shorter day on day 4 and extend out day 5 since day 5 was supposed to be cooler...

Deep lake from near Cathedral Rock.
Drying the quilt on top of the pass at Cathedral Rock.
After a short traverse the trail started to switchback down and traverse on the hill below Mt. Daniel. We ran into Two Feet during our lunch, he was a thru-hiker in a really good mood. We heard a few great stories of his travels up and to this point. The cougar encounter was probably the best story, it wasn't just a sighting. He came up from behind and spooked the cougar, snapped a photo and drew his knife. Thru-hikers have some of the best stories of their travels! One day I could only dream of such an adventure to walk from border to border along the Pacific Crest Trail.

mmm... lunch.
Two Feet alongside the creek.
Me after completely soaking my clothes in the creek to try and help regulate my body temps in the heat.
After we finished our lunch we headed back down the trail towards the glacier feed Swift Creek which was supposedly a potentially hazardous crossing. At times the trail was more of a bushwhack with how overgrown all the plants were. We arrived at the Swift Creek crossing around 4pm, not exactly the best time of day to be showing up to a potentially hazardous crossing... We scoped the crossing where the cairns were, the water had rose enough to wipe out some of the logs that people placed to ease the crossing. So we scouted up and down the stream a little ways to find a suitable crossing that did not require jumping a 3 foot gap onto a wet rock... I'd do it, but I knew there was no way in hell that Dicentra would be willing to make the leap over a narrow and rushing patch of water. Dicentra found some pools up above and I tested the depth with a stick and walked across. The current was not bad at all, so Dicentra plowed in and crossed. We had another group come up on the other side, a slightly older couple with some really old gear. External framed packs, and heavy leather boots with all sorts of stuff packed away. We explained the crossing options and the guy headed over, looked at the leap, went to a spot with a shorter leap and jumped. He just barely kept his balance on the landing, set his pack down and coaxed his wife over. She looked at it, handed the pack over the gap and decided she didn't want to jump it. I ran over and offered to walk upstream of her to break the light current as she waded through the pools. After I helped her across, Dicentra and I were back on the trail and pushing on through the heat...

Dicentra looking upstream for alternative crossings.
The crossing at the pools above the cairns.
The last little crossing before we were leaving the Swift Creek area.
Quite the view on a super hot day just before the muggy Deception Pass.
When we hit Deception Pass in the trees the muggy heat was unbearable! We only stopped for a short while and pressed on to "cooler" pastures... From here it was only about 3.4 miles to deception lake where we decided to cut the day short and planned to make our camp. After what seemed like an eternity we finally reached the outlet and hiked up to the lake. We crossed the outlet of the second lake and found a huge flat campsite. The mosquitoes were biting and swarming like mad... We setup camp, and I went out to go fish for an hour. Lost another fly to a tree about 8 to 9 feet up... I went back to camp to tie another tippet line on and was being swarmed so bad that I couldn't stay focused to tie the double surgeon's knot... Part of of the problem was the irritation towards the skeeters, part was trying to see through the skeeter head net, and part was because I was starving and daylight was dying. So instead I picked up my cook kit and we sat down and cooked dinner at dusk. Dicentra made some sort of desert which was really good and than I went to bed.

Deception Creek trail.
Almost there...
One of the Deception Lakes.