A post about a second PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) section hike, this one up in Washington State (previous encounter with the PCT here). I began ruminating on another PCT hike way back in the winter (Jan 2024 or thereabouts), and mentioned the possibility to friends.
To my very great satisfaction I was able to recruit my grad school friend Reinhard for the trip (he is a very experienced hiker and outdoorsman), so we began planning/organizing in the spring, and eventually settled on a trip leaving from the Seattle area in late August. We decided on section "J" of the Washington State PCT, which runs from Snoqualmie Pass up to Stevens Pass, a roughly 70 mile stretch that cuts through the Alpine Lakes region of the Cascades.
Late August is considered the best time of year to hike in this area, since it is typically fairly dry (average of 1-2 days rain in Seattle during the month), which cuts down on the mosquitoes. Reviews of this part of the PCT tend to characterize it as very beautiful but also fairly challenging.
Reinhard also made arrangements for us to meet up with a friend of his (Volker) on the tail end of the trip, where the three of us would do some sort of continuation hike in the area (route TBD). Although the initial plan had been to do the hike in around a week (10 miles a day), we decided to compress the trip a bit and do it in around five days instead, since it worked better with the schedule.
We flew in to Seattle arriving Monday Aug 19th and spent the night with friends (Kathryn and Scotty), then in the morning their son Dylan was kind enough to drive us up to the trailhead, which is about an hour or so from Seattle downtown.
With Kathryn, Scotty, and Dylan at their place:
First day (Tue):
Much anticipation in the car ride up into the mountains, also a bit of puzzlement, since it was actually raining on the way (Dylan's reaction: "Very odd, normally it doesn't rain in August").
After being dropped off, we tightened our boot laces, put on our pack covers, and hit the trail heading north. Solid hike in the first day; lots of elevation gain and climbing. Overcast skies, lots of foggy/wispy clouds being whipped around by the wind, and pretty persistent drizzle (thankfully not too heavy).
At the drop-off, just shy of the trailhead:
Very striking contrast in terms of terrain and vegetation compared to my previous section hike in the Sierras -- this one with lower altitude (between 3000 and 6000 feet), and much more lush and heavily forested. Thick forests of Douglas fir, Sitka Spruce, and Western Cedar, and others, and plenty of other underbrush and smaller bits of vegetation, including huge numbers of blueberry and huckleberry bushes lining the trails.
Here is a shot of the start of the interestingly named "Kendall Katwalk", a strip of trail that has been cut directly into the rock face at a specific spot in order to facilitate crossing of a very pointy/sharp mountain ridge (apparently created with blasting/dynamite). Very misty weather, a sort of "inside of a cloud" feel at this point.
Encountered on the trail -- a family of mountain goats! Looked like mom, dad, two kids, and a somewhat surly looking uncle. The uncle in question was parked right in the middle of the trail as we approached, I was a little worried that he wasn't going to budge, but he eventually moved out of the way as we got closer.
More critters -- tail end of a marmot (we saw a lot of these guys, also plenty of pikas).
We finished our hike around mile 2411 (ARCGIS link, maps link), just south of Chikamin Ridge just short of one of the various "stock camps" they have along the trail to support groups of horses/mules that also use the PCT (no actual stock around when we were there, this was just a regular tent site for us). Satisfying dinner meal of pasta (orzo) and jar tomato pesto sauce (decanted into a ziploc), very tasty.
Long day: on the trail (from 9am to 6pm), we were both pretty tired.
Second day (Wednesday):
Rain overnight; I think it started around 4am. I woke up around 6:45am or so, went over to nudge Reinhard but I think he hadn't slept well (no big surprise given that he was still on European time and quite jet-lagged). A bit later (8:30am or so) the rain eased a bit, so we got up, had some breakfast, and got our gear packed up. A shot of our campsite:
Lots of other hikers encountered on the trail at this stage, many of them (from what I could tell from trail chat) coming up from Spectacle Lake campsites and headed back to Snoqualmie.
Filtering water along the way. Strangely, there were some sizable chunks of the trail (6, 7+ miles long) where there was no water available, so we had to manage that carefully.
Our hike for this day took us up steeply to a notch overlooking Spectacle Lake below to the north; the clouds had lifted enough to give us nice views here, very beautiful.
The lake and the fact that we had warmed up from the hike left us no choice but to hike down and have a swim! Very refreshing, lake water cool but not life-threateningly cold.
Stopping for lunch at a waterfall (this is a creek coming off Spectacle Lake):
We hiked along for another 5 or 6 miles, weather actually pretty decent compared to the previous day, then when we hit mile 7 or so we had a dilemma to wrestle with -- if we continued that day we would have had to hike another 9 or 10 miles to get to a waterless campsite (would have been a huge climb up to Escondido ridge and then another push to get past a lengthy "no camping" area), or we could stay put and start again in the morning. We chose the latter option since we had made a late start that day, and since we were both still recovering from the strenuous hike-in.
On the plus side there was a really nice campsite just bordering Lemah creek (a smallish river, very cold and clear) with a spot for a campfire and good tent sites.
Part way through our hike: bridge over Lemah Creek had been washed out (we had to rock-hop over instead):
Since it was a shorter day, we had time to spread our tents out to dry and get organized. Reinhard decided to make a campfire (a bit hard to find dry wood, but not impossible). We had no matches, but we were able to get it going with a bit of help from the camping stove (lighting twigs on fire and then then using them to get other tinder ignited). With the fire we were able to heat water for tea without using cooking gas.
That night at 9:30 (at which point I was completely asleep) we had visitors -- another hiker who had been going all day turned up and pitched his tent (or more accurately, a tarp). I didn't see him until the morning, but his setup was a bit closer to Reinhard, who heard him come in. This guy was apparently doing the same section hike we were doing but southbound, and at a pace that would have him finishing in three days (yikes!); he said that on the day he'd arrived he'd put in 35 miles. He also gave us a few tips about things on the trail that he'd covered, specifically a tricky creek crossing just north of Cathedral pass.
Third day (Thursday):
Another long mileage day -- after getting our gear organized and packed up, we tackled the big climb that had put us off the day before, big ascent (lots of switchbacks) from around 3400 feet up to Escondido ridge at around 5600 feet, then along the top of the ridge for a few miles, and then a correspondingly big descent back down to 3000 feet to Waptus Lake. Lunch at a nice spot overlooking the Waptus river valley to the north during a dry part of the day.
On the trail:
The downhill from Escondido to Waptus was pretty brutal, and I could feel a couple of big blisters starting to form on the front part of my foot soles (wet socks are not great for steep downhills). Around 14 miles total, with a lot of elevation gain/loss.
Excellent camping site right on the north shore of Waptus Lake (ARCGIS link); Reinhard even went so far as to pitch his tent right at the top of a little gravel beach close to the water (I was a bit less adventurous). Second pasta dinner; we finished off the tomato pesto sauce. I should add that after our dinners Reinhard was able to magically produce small bottles of Underberg and Jägermeister (herbal digestifs) for us to share, very tasty (a small welcome bit of "civilization" on the trail).
A few other hikers filtered in while we were making dinner, including one guy who said he was doing the entire Washington state PCT.
Waptus Lake campsite:
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Fourth day (Friday):
Light rain as we were getting packed up, gear a bit wet. I could not bear that thought of putting on the same socks I had been wearing for two days, so I took the plunge and broke out my second pair of hiking socks, hoping for dry weather. Mistake however :-) since the new socks wound up as soaked as the old ones in just a few hours. Although it only rained an hour or two that morning, there was very heavy vegetation on both sides of the trail (and in fact sticking into the trail), and all those leaves and branches were dripping with water. As we hiked through it the water came off the leaves and went right onto our legs, then into our boots. Reinhard described it as "going through a car wash" (with wet brushes on both sides) and I had to agree, that was an accurate description. It did not seem to slow us down, though, we made good time.
Stream crossing:
About two or three miles along we encountered the stream crossing that we had heard about from our Wednesday night visitor (and which was written up in the guide book as a "dangerous ford"). Very full stream with a set of stepping rocks leading across at the trail, but the water was very close to the top of the rocks and they looked pretty wet/slippery. We eyeballed it for a few minutes and decided it was not a safe prospect. About 100 meters downstream we could see another hiker (the WA PCT guy we'd bumped into the night before) who was investigating options, so we went down and found that there was a place where there were no rocks but you could wade across, so we decided to go with that option. Wet, but a whole lot less dangerous. Had a short lunch sitting on the rocks after that.
The "problem" stream:
Evaluating possible crossing spots:
Reinhard on his way across:
After that the trail leveled off a bit and we were able to make good progress on the mileage; we eventually made it around 15 miles to a campsite near Deception Creek (ARCGIS link). Heavily wooded, big trees, and a couple of very large fallen logs that had gotten stuck on each other, forming a little rain shadow below them. Reinhard pitched his tent under the biggest log (hoping that it would help with the rain) and I found a spot a bit uphill. Can't remember what we had for dinner, we were both pretty tired.
More rain that evening and overnight, this time probably the heaviest we'd had so far. We did our best to stay dry (ultralight backpacking tents are designed to handle one or two hours of rain, but they tend to start getting wet inside after 8-10 hours of rain). As luck would have it the rain water also just flowed around the log, so the items on the line were completely drenched the next morning :-).
Fifth day (Saturday):
In the morning: not a total disaster -- things were a bit wet inside the tent in the morning but not soaked (in particular my sleeping bag was still dry enough overall to keep me warm). I slept past my usual waking time (5:45am); Reinhard had to come over and nudge me awake at 6:45am.
At this point I had been sending satellite messages to Amy apprising her of our progress, and it was pretty clear that we weren't going to be able to make it all the way to Stevens Pass by the end of the day unless we hiked 21+ miles, so we opted instead to camp at Lake Susan Jane, about 4.5 miles in from the pass. We packed up our wet gear and hit the trail.
Still raining, and at this point the temps had turned colder. I was hiking with a synthetic t-shirt, a wool layer, another synthetic button down shirt, and then my rain parka on top. Most of these layers at this point were wet, but there was at least some insulating effect. Reinhard was cold as well, so we basically hiked as quickly as we could in an effort to stay warm (this tended to work well on the uphills where we were really exerting ourselves, less effective on the downhills).
Very odd collection of other hikers on the trail. We saw several trail runners jog by, all in rain gear, carrying tiny packs (not big enough for camping gear, just big enough for water and snacks). No idea what route they were doing. At one point we were overtaken by a young bearded guy with his "game face" on, hiking at about twice our pace (some of the "through" hikers were saw were also moving at quite a clip). Then a bit after mid-day we encountered a solo female hiker doing our same route in reverse.
We passed Lake Josephine around 4pm or so, total mileage about 15.5 (very speedy; cold is a big motivator). At that point in the trip we had what was probably our moment of "maximal" confusion -- we located the spot at which we were supposed to rendezvous with Volker, Lake Susan Jane (ARCGIS link), and we hiked off the PCT and up the Icicle Creek trail for a bit to find it. Alas, the "lake" turned out to basically be a pond with no suitable camping spots, and no sign of Volker either.
To complicate matters, since we were off the PCT at this point (we had to take Icicle Creek Trail to reach the lake) there was the distinct possibility that Volker had just passed us on the PCT while we were venturing around the lake. Not a great feeling there; we had visions of Volker (who for all we knew had no tent) cruising off to the south in the cold downpour with fading daylight while we were pushing north, with no means to contact him... we hurried back to rejoin the PCT. At that point much to our relief we got a message on the satellite gadget that Volker had the good sense to stay at the KOA in the nearby town of Leavenworth. Whew!
Then we finally took more looks at the map and realized that the lake and camp we were looking for was actually half a mile further down the trail. Screenshot from the mapping software:
We'd been searching around at the much tinier "Lake Susan Jane" off the Icicle Creek trail, whereas the one we wanted was downhill, heh.
We were happy to get that mistake corrected; hiked down to the real lake and picked out a spot, with plans to head for the pass in the morning and find a way to meet Volker in Leavenworth. Camp site:
We pitched out tents, had dinner, and retired fairly early to try to rest up. More rain that night, not as hard as the previous one, but definitely drippy. Around 2:30am I woke up to the sound of some sort of critter making noise outside my tent; I could hear it poking at my camping stove, which I had left just outside the door underneath one of the flaps (I could also hear it poking at my pack).
I dozed for a bit, then in another 15 or 20 minutes I woke up again and realized that whatever it was had actually found a way inside the tent. I very carefully turned on my flashlight inside my sleeping bag, then swung it out to see what was what. Directly in the beam I could see a mouse who had jumped up on my cloth "bear bag" (containing all my food) and was trying to bite his way into it. The mouse made a run for it at that point (down towards my legs) but I gave him a good whack with my cell phone, which stunned him, and then another couple of harder whacks which did him in. That was it for the tent invaders that night, thankfully... I am grateful in retrospect that this mouse was a solo operator and not part of a "family operation".
Sixth day (Sunday):
Last day, getting ready for the hike out! We were both very much looking forward to a down day at this point. We had our usual breakfast (muesli); with this meal we managed to polish off the entire huge bag that Reinhard had been toting (all 1.2 kilos of it.) Energized, we packed up and hit the trail.
Irony (in a good way of course): we saw our first bit of blue sky in days, just a few minutes as we headed down the trail. The weather continued to clear (partially) as we went along. The hike out (4.5 miles or so) took just over two hours; the last half or so was within the boundaries of the Stevens Pass ski area (lifts, ski runs and such).
We arrived at the trailhead soggy but happy, with much anticipation of hot meals, dry clothing, warm showers and other such things. Immediately visible right at the trailhead was a cardboard box labeled "Trail Magic" with snacks and drinks in it (!?!). Then just another 30 yards down the parking lot we saw a group of folks gathered, so we wandered over to check it out.
Two guys (Jack and Kyle) had set up a sort of food pavilion, with a gas grill, boxes of fruit and snacks, and a full-on camp cooking operation. They were not there for themselves, they had set the whole thing up to feed and help out PCT hikers coming off the trail. There were camp chairs, one of which was occupied by a young hiker woman who was keeping the two guys company. Also arriving around the same time was another PCT "through" hiker, fellow with the trail name "Clean Sheets". It was a friendly and happy scene; the guy who had just come off the PCT was grinning as though he'd won the lottery.
Reinhard and I chatted a bit with the folks there and accepted a snack or two, then Reinhard asked one of them what the best way was top get to Leavenworth. [I had turned on my phone and brought up my Lyft app to see what the price was for a ride, and it was quoting me around $175, doable but not cheap].
At that point instead of offering advice, Kyle (the second guy running the show) piped up and said "Hey, I am happy to give you a lift in to Leavenworth -- my car is right here, hop in!". We were a bit astonished, but he was indeed serious, so we piled into the car and in a few minutes we were zooming along down the highway. Reinhard and I couldn't quite believe it, but we were very happy to have the help getting along to our next destination.
Kyle was from Olympia; his buddy had hiked the PCT in 2021, and he was planning to do it next year (2025); they had decided that this year they would instead set up shop with their "trail angel" operation at Stevens Pass for a couple of weeks to help out their fellow hikers. The inside of the car was hot, he had been blasting the heater to try to keep it warm (apparently most of the other people he'd given rides to were half-frozen at that point and needed to be "thawed out"). He was fun to talk with and had plenty of stories about helping out hikers and about trail news from the area. When we got in to Leavenworth he drove us all the way to entrance to the KOA where Volker was staying, very kind of him indeed (we tried to give him gas money to help out, but he refused). Super nice guy!
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Once "down in the valley", the KOA was deliciously warm and dry, it was sunny and I think the temps were in the high 70's low 80s. We wandered in and eventually found the spot where Volker and his family were camped. Volker's wife was off delivering a load of friends to the airport, so he was there just with his two kids (6 year old twins, very friendly and curious about the newly arrived hikers).
Reinhard and I immediately got busy setting out all our soaked stuff to dry (sleeping bags, tents, etc) and I collected up a bag of laundry to run through the washing machines that they had there at the campground. Definitely felt like another world compared to what we had experienced in the high country.
We had a nice time during the remainder of the afternoon and evening tending to our gear, eating nice meals that Volker had cooked for us, and hanging out with Volker and his family -- very pleasant. The camper there had a couple of "extension" tent things, so we were able to sleep in comparative comfort for a change, yay.
We also made a short foray into Leavenworth to have a beer and a bit of sausage at one of the cafes there. Turns out that Leavenworth has gone "whole hog" with a Bavarian theme, with German-themed street names, buildings built to look like typical Bavarian construction, lots of German themed shops and restaurants. Kind of loopy, but I enjoyed it (the Bratwurst and beer was very tasty).
Seventh day (Monday)
Slept in for a change (until the ridiculous hour of 7:30) and then had a nice breakfast with the gang. Spent the morning getting our gear stowed and helping Volker get his trailer and tents packed up and ready for a departure the following day. Later in the morning we eventually got everyone piled into the car (hikers included) and then Volker's wife drove us up to Stevens Pass again.
This time rather than hike in on the PCT we decided to overshoot slightly and hike in along the Surprise Creek trail, heading for a campsite at Surprise Lake. The plan was to then join up with the PCT, then hike northeast to Mig lake, camp there, and then hike east again along the PCT to Icicle Creek trail and then up to the Chain Lakes.
Hike in was nice -- sunshine, warm but not too hot, lots of elevation to gain, but at a reasonably moderate pace. We eventually arrived at the lake a bit after 4, weather still sunny but starting to cool a bit. Reinhard and Volker went for a swim in the lake (very brief, water was quite cold) and we got our tents pitched and ready. Nice dinner together, this time of freeze-dried meals with which Volker had kindly provisioned us.
We did get rain overnight-- I had hoped that the good weather would continue but the rain gods were apparently not quite done yet. We did some shuffling around of the sleeping arrangements -- Volker and Reinhard took my tent, and I took Reinhard's tent (a genuinely antique piece of equipment, a Eureka 1-man thing from the late 1980's).
Getting ready to hang my food bag (one way to avoid late-night tent visits from critters):
Eighth day (Tuesday)
Pretty chilly in the morning, thermometer said somewhere around 35 degrees F, so pretty close to freezing. We fired up the stove and had a hot breakfast with plenty of tea, which helped warm us up quite a bit.
I looked at the forecast using my Garmin Inreach (you can request a local forecast with these gadgets, it is one of their features). The prediction was 0% chance rain (hmm where had we seen that before, same 0% predicted during our previous hike?) and cold temps, continuing between 35 and 40.
Packed up our tents and gear and hit the trail around 8:30 or so (if my memory serves). The first hour or so of the hike was a steep ascent to get us up to the PCT; lots of climbing, which definitely helped warm us up. After joining up with the PCT we started getting rain again, steady enough that our rain jackets and boots/socks were starting to get wet.
We hiked along the ridge for a while and then had another ascent up to a nameless pass -- we paused for a break at the top, then realized that as we were standing there the rain had turned to snow/hail (yikes). That got us going again, so we started descending down to Hope Lake.
By the time we reached Hope Lake we were soaked once again (rain had continued), and a bit cold to boot. I decided at that point to propose bailing from the hike -- I no longer had any confidence in the "zero percent chance of rain" forecast, and it seemed quite possible that we'd have more bad weather. Volker and Reinhard thought about it, and then after another hot lunch, we decided to go ahead and pull the plug. Instead of camping at Mig Lake, we would instead hike all the way out to Stevens Pass (about 8 miles). It was a bit after 2pm at that point, but I was pretty sure we could do it.
I sent a satellite message to Amy asking if she could come and pick us up (she had flown in to Seattle the previous weekend). In a stroke of good luck, she saw the message more or less right away, and was able to rent a car from one of the rental companies in her neighborhood. I told her that we would make for Stevens Pass at that point; she said she would try to pick us up between 6:30 and 7.
We continued on with our hike -- made it past Mig Lake, then up a long uphill to get over the pass near Swimming Deer Lake, and then down to Josephine Lake. I think at that point it was around 4 or 4:30 -- we continued on.
We did finally roll into Stevens Pass at around 7pm, where Amy was waiting for us with a rented minivan-- she was a sight for sore eyes. After some quick clothes-changing we got piled into the rental car and made the drive back to Seattle (there was some traffic, so it took a bit longer than we had predicted).
Dinner at Wooden City Grill near Green Lake, then back to the AirBNB for showers and bed, whew. Long day.
Ninth day (Wednesday):
Back to civilization!
At this point we split up; Amy and I stayed in Seattle and Reinhard opted to hop on the train to Portland with Volker, where they were planning another camping excursion along the Oregon Coast Trail.
Amy and I had a few nice days of R&R cycling around the city with various other activities. We visited the Seattle art museum, which was fun (they were doing a Calder exhibition), and we had an outing to visit Bainbridge Island: bike to light rail station, light rail to ferry, ferry to island, then more biking once we got there.
Art museum visit:
Weather was great; visiting Seattle in late August early September is really pleasant. We finished things off with a trip to Din Tai Fung with Kathryn and Scotty, that was a good way to round out the trip.
At the airport getting ready to fly back home:
A fine late summer vacation!
