Oddball in Washington: Cascade Locks to White Pass

The Knife Edge, Goat Rocks Wilderness

I spent three days in Cascade Locks resting and hoping the heat wave I was in would calm down before I started Washington.  Unfortunately for me, the heat did not die down.  I set off regardless; after all I have been through worse.

That little heat wave made my first day in Washington somewhat miserable.  The easy Oregon terrain was officially gone.  My first section of Washington was long and even at 25-miles per day I still had to carry six days of food to get my rear to White Pass, and lots of this first stretch was also very exposed to the sun.  The heat, along with my pack weight, and the return of difficult terrain, helped make me feel incredibly worn out.  The high temperatures also facilitated a rather disgusting grey haze that ruined what should have been wonderful views of Table Mountain.  I was happy to be done when I reached Rock Creek that first day but I also found myself robbed of good sleep.  Even with the sun setting and with my choice of sleeping in the open near the creek, it was just too hot for me to sleep comfortably.

Thick growth near Panther Creek

A single bad night of sleep can often ruin an entire week’s hiking schedule.  I overslept that first night and got a late start on the second day.  The heat had noticeably died down and—much to my surprise—even with my late start (8am) I found myself enjoying a couple of hours of hiking through morning fog.  It was a definite improvement over the previous day and I hiked through the entire remainder of the morning without a break until I reached Wind River, where I found myself noticeably hungrier than usual.  It was there I realized that Oregon had spoiled me, there were so many places to resupply that I rarely had more than a couple days worth of food in my pack.  I had forgotten what six or seven days of food felt like and how much more difficult that weight could make already difficult terrain   In the afternoon I found myself having to break every four or five miles because of my grumbling stomach, it was both robbing me of my strength and annoying me.  It was, at the least, a beautiful section.  The sections of the PCT that traverse near and over Panther Creek are incredibly green with tall moss covered trees amongst thick fields of ferns.  In essence, there was a green canopy far above my head and another one just below my knees. I made matters worse though by stopping often to take pictures.  I also made the mistake of constantly skipping water sources and telling myself, “I’ll grab water at the next source.”  When the sun finally set I was without water and dry camping was out of the question unless I wanted to go to sleep hungry.  I donned a headlamp, quickened my pace, and cursed the gradually decreasing number of hours of sunlight I had to work with each day.  I stopped when I found my destination—a gully with a spring.  I gathered a few quarts from the spring, tossed my ground mat and sleeping bag on the ground, made dinner, ate, scribbled some notes in my journal, and went to sleep.

Sleeping in the open that night turned out to be a horrible idea.  I was tired, stubborn, and in such a strong habit of not using my tent unless mosquitoes told me otherwise, that I did not take the thick cloud cover above me seriously.  I was constantly awoken every hour or so by the heavy sounds of thunder.  Each time I awoke, I noticed a complete absence of stars.  I should have had the discipline to get out of my sleeping bag and set up my tent first time I made that observation.  Instead, in my various half-awaken conditions of denial, I reasoned that the storm would not produce any precipitation and would blow over me while I calmly slept.  Four hours into this nonsense it started to rain.  I set up my tent in a matter of minutes but by then I had lost too many good hours of sleep.  Like the previous day, I awoke still exhausted from the previous day and from a lack of sleep.  When I finally succeeded in getting myself out of camp and back on trail I put in my headphones, listened to eleven straight hours of Oregon Public Radio, and mindlessly moved myself north until I reached the outlet of Big Mosquito Lake.  Here I proclaimed the area “good enough,” stepped on a large patch of two-foot tall blades of grass, pitched my tent, ate, and fell asleep while writing in my journal.

Mount Adams Glacier

Despite the large bumps on the ground from my hastily constructed campsite I slept like a baby.  Exhaustion can eventually be quite beneficial, one can sleep on anything.  Between that night’s great sleep and having consumed half my food weight by that morning, I felt great.  It was around here I felt my real energy returning.  From here out I assumed a new pace—ten to fifteen miles between breaks.  It felt great.  I would hike at a causal 2 ½ mile per hour pace and stop every four to six hours.  The timing could not have been better too.  Washington finally began to assume the form I envisioned—green meadows saturated with vibrantly colored flowers, tall snow-capped mountains, and giant glaciers.  When Mount Adams came into view I completely lost track of time and failed to notice even my hunger pangs as the trail slowly traveled around it; I constantly had my head turned over my right shoulder and had a near-permanent smile on my face.  I forgot that day I was trying to get to get White Pass, much less Canada.  I was just happy to be there.  At the end of the day I found myself fording a silt-soaked Lewis River.  Like my previous ford, the river was swollen with fresh snow-melt, was ice cold, and impossible to see the bottom of at any location.  After about half an hour of trial and error, I found a location I could ford with a reasonable degree of safety.  Once I was across I spent another half hour trying to regain some feeling and warmth back in my feet.  I had the energy to hike another mile or so and set up camp near a large pond.  The soft beach-like sand was too good to pass up.  I couldn't have found better ground to sleep upon.

Rainier comes into view

I was sad when Mount Adams was no longer in view.  For some time the following day I kept turning around after navigating around new hill tops, ridges, or valleys in the hope that there would be some unforeseen opening with a view more spectacular than the last.  It never happened though.  The trail returned to monotonous and lackluster dry forest with the exception of a small section that afford me a stunning  distant view of Mount Rainier, a prelude for tomorrow I told myself.  I continued hiking lengthy stretches for four to five hours at a time and generally took my breaks when I was hungry or bored.  During these breaks I also started to appreciate how much damage my appetite had done to my food during those first three days.  I had reasoned that it was okay to eat more early on because I was carrying more weight and that as my pack weight lessened I would need less food.  My metabolism did not agree with this line of reasoning and demanded as much food as I had been eating before.  I was running out of food and found myself trying to ration out my gorp and jar of peanut butter as best as I could.  I would have enough food for breakfasts and dinners but I realized that I was going to have to hike hungry during some point in each of the subsequent afternoons until I reached White Pass.  I was able to supplement my diet to a certain degree with a large number of huckleberries along the trail.  However, I found that picking enough to satisfy my hunger took away precious hours of sunlight.  More often than not I chose to forgo collecting enough food so I could take advantage of as much daylight as possible to hike in. 

Hiking  and climbing over Cispus Pass in the evening

The terrain returned to its Adamsesque splendor just before Cispus Pass but I was regrettably running out of light and could not enjoy the scenery as much as I would have liked to.  I did have a certain amount of fun climbing over a very large block of icy snow twice my height to get to the pass in the early hours of the evening.  I did my best find the path of least resistance with my headlamp, kick in steps, balance myself with my trekking poles, and then walk along the top until I found the Pass.  It was cold, I was short on time, but I nonetheless took a few minutes to stand there and look around in the darkness.  The only visible things were the faint outlines of rock and trees on the horizon and the various large patches of white snow that remained on the ridges.  I continued in the dark until I found a creek, and a reasonable place that afforded me both flat ground and some protection from the cold evening wind.

I woke up the next morning covered in a thin layer of ice and frost.  I probably would have hid in my sleeping bag for an hour or two because of the morning cold but the motivation of a nearby town can truly make short work of my often cold morning indolence.  I hid in my sleeping bag only long enough to make and stomach my disgusting oatmeal calories, and drink my increasingly addictive instant hot coffee and hot coco mix.  Shortly after returning to trail I spotted a giant and hideous orange dome a half a mile or so ahead of me.  I found myself confused until I was close enough; it was a regular camper’s tent.  After this little revelation, it occurred to me, I had not seen a single person since I left Cascade Locks.  Even though I would see a number of tents scattered throughout this area, I would not see a human face until I arrived at the pass.  These occupants were perfectly content to sleep in during these early horus and wait until the air slowly began to regain some warmth.

Self-portrait with a final view of Mount Adams in the background 

After coming out of this high valley I entered into an area that would become one of my favorite segments on the entire PCT—Goat Rocks.  The entire area was absolutely beautiful.  Early on I enjoyed large and flat meadows filled with red, white, and violet flowers; and tucked just below towering snow-capped peaks.  To the south, Mount Adams returned for one final and remarkable view.  Just below the meadows to the southwest were vast seas of white clouds that hid other meadows and valleys that I imagined were just as scenic.  Amongst the meadows I was in were a series of miniature forests, patches of a few dozen evergreens isolated from each other like little green islands.  These meadows eventually gave way to snowfields that quickly gave way to a walk along a narrow ridgeline just above a giant valley.  I went over this ridgeline while the valley was covered in clouds and it reminded me of a giant brown bowl full of sugar with a giant piece of white chocolate—Mount Rainier—resting on the top.  The supreme architect of the universe must have had a sweet tooth when he made Goat Rocks.  I stopped often, took many pictures, and for the first time in a very long time—I stopped to sit and soak in the view.

The "sugar bowl" with Rainier off in the distance

I was partially annoyed with how brutal most of the terrain in Goat Rocks was, there was a considerable amounts of layers of loose, smooth, and flat rocks that composed of the trail here.  In order to avoid slipping and falling, I moved slowly and carefully.  At the same time though, I was enjoying the views even more than I enjoyed my walk around Adams; I would not have wanted to rush through this area anyway.  Goat Rocks Wilderness continued all the way until White Pass, but most of the magnificence ceased once my giant brown bowl of sugar was out of view.  The terrain slowly became kinder to my feet but the trade off was less beauty for my eyes.  I hiked through break alpine creeklet-infested flats until they gave way to the boring kind of forest I’d come accustomed to.

I did not know what to expect at White Pass.  For whatever reason I had been imagining a small mountain town, but in reality, what awaited me at White Pass was a closed ski resort area with a gas station.  I arrived at 4:53pm.  Seven minutes before the deceivingly-named gas station, the “Cracker Barrel Store,” (which held my resupply package) should have closed.  Alas though, they closed early that day.  My phone was dead, I was completely out of food, and I instantly felt crushed.  If someone offered me a cigarette right there and then I would have taking up smoking again.  Luckily for me, after a brief search, I found an outlet on one of the sides of the building, charged my phone, texted a friend who looked up the towns that were nearest to me, and then after two hours with my thumb out, someone picked me up and dropped me off in Packwood.  I immediately set about securing three things—a hotel room, a dinner with as many fatty calories as possible, and beer.