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.