Day 158: Nunatak

Monday, 3rd October 2016
Forest above Chuck River - campground under trees on ridge above Vista Creek valley on NE slope of Glacier Peak
Mile 2505 - 2529
Total 24 miles

Under protection of tree cover, the night was mild and dry except a few water droplets falling down from the branches. At the first light I was already back on the narrow path, first heading through old growth forest on the flat bottom of the Chuck river valley and passing a pair of hikers who were just getting out of their tent, then starting a steep ascent to the west facing slopes of Glacier Peak. One of the streams flowing out of the glaciers is Kennedy Creek with a halfway-broken, but well functioning wooden bridge.



From there the path followed a contour with alternating uphills and downhills, crossings of silty streams, and views of clouds covering the surrounding valleys.




On the path I met an unexpected person going from the north: the hiker "one eleven", whom I last had seen in the desert of southern California. He had decided to skip to the Canadian border and from there travel across Washington state from north to south and now he gave me good suggestions about the upcoming trail section around Glacier Peak and further north. After several more uphills and downhills, the trail reached a high elevation saddle with more views of the North Cascades and patches of snow on the slopes of Glacier Peak's massive cloud- covered summit.



up in the Fire Creek Pass saddle at 6500 ft elevation the soil was frozen, the air was chilly. From there the path descended steeply to a deep glacial lake. On the lake shore I cooked couscous for lunch, surprised how far my feet already carried me today (13 miles).




More views of the ridges of the North Cascades: somewhere far away in between the almost endless parade of deep forested valleys and rocky ridges, but less than 100 miles to the north as the crow flies, goes the USA - Canada boundary. However, the mountainous wilderness continues from here much further north, across the western part of Canada into Alaska, towards North America's highest peak of Denali (also called Mount Mc Kinley), until it is interrupted by the fast and ice-cold currents of the Bering Strait that separate the Americas from Asia...



Aided by numerous switchbacks, the narrow path descended deep down into the valley of Milk Creek. The stream got its name because off its color. The change of elevation is clearly visible on the vegetation; at 3000 feet, colorful maples dominate in the forest.



After crossing Milk Creek, the path started climbing again from 3000 to almost 6000 feet of elevation. Thanks to the intelligence of smart people who surveyed the PCT route and thanks to the hard work of many volunteers, the path overcomes the large difference by more than forty switchbacks. More than forty, because I only started counting them half mile after the bridge over Milk Creek :-) During the climb I watched vegetation changing from maples to various conifer trees again and clouds filling the valley below. The most impressive sight was looking at the large glacier at the rear end of the valley with various landforms that I had only known from geology books. In the middle of the
in the next photo we can see a perfect example of a nunatak: a sharp needle-shaped rock, sticking out of the mass of the deep and perpetually moving ice.


From top of the climb, the path took a gentler course through a mysteriously enchanting landscape of isolated rocks, meadows, springs, boulders and groups of mountain hemlock trees. The delicate veil of mist and low clouds covering the surrounding valleys was becoming thicker and thicker as evening darkness quickly approached.


It was about time to start looking for a sheltered and protected spot for spending the night. Shortly after the trail started descending towards the deep valley of the Suiattle river, I found a perfect camping spot under thick cover of for and hemlock trees. Pitching my tent under one of the trees and putting the folded tarp and sleeping pad and plastic bags inside for extra warmth, I hoped that any rain falling during the night would only be light and soon closed my eyes in deep sleep after a long but beautiful 27-mile hiking day.

Day 154: Around Cathedral Peak

Thursday, 29th October 2016
Cowboy camp in Waptus River valley - forest near Glacial Lake
Mile 2425 - 2448
total 23 miles



Voices of squirrels were like a signal announcing a new day when I woke up looking at branches of giant conifer trees. The place where I slept was a perfect hidden camping spot situated on the flat bottom of the U-shaped, glacially formed Waptus river valley. The night had been warm and dry, the only exception being a couple of tiny water droplets condensating on the tree canopy and hesitantly falling down. A cup of hot tea and two big bowls of almost perfectly prepared hot oats with rich trail mix of nuts and seeds gave me energy to get up fast and start walking to a bridge across the glacier-fed Waptus River, and continuing gently uphill through a valley of one of it's tributaries, into a woodland with colorful maples, and past a narrow gorge with a white waterfall and sweet huckleberries on exposed shallow rocky soil. On the trail I saw two people; One of them was Josh whom I taught about edible berries and who was still sleeping in his tiny tent; Another kind person was the hiker with a moniker "Samples", whom I had been meeting and greeting many times in southern California, Oregon, and now again in Washington.




The wilderness in the Cascade had been reminding me of the Sierra Nevada in many ways. Both mountain ranges owe their present shape to glacier action and both have plenty of water to drink and stretches with high elevation gain. However there are some key differences. 6000 ft elevation in the Cascades hosts similar trees and shrubs as 11000 ft elevation in the Sierra; The atmosphere in the Cascades is more dense, more humid, and easier to breathe; And the PCT stretches outside civilization are shorter in the Cascades, the longest stretch between roads being 107 miles, compared to the high Sierra's 180 miles. Other differences are due to time of year. September and early October are the richest times of year in the high country of the Wild West, with virtually no mosquitoes, and an abundance of edible fungi and berries. I believe the hikers who are now in the Sierra Nevada a good berry and mushroom harvest.




The sharp peak above was given a name "Cathedral Peak". Around noon I reached a high elevation saddle under the peak in 6000 feet. The sun showed up at the same time. I spent three hours up in the saddle, cooking delicious food, drying the remaining damp parts of my sleeping bag and tarp, and trying to use duck tape to seal the holes in my "Pearl Izumi" shoes. My second pair of shoes had lasted 1150 miles; the third pair, on the other hand, is barely holding together after less than 800 miles. It would be interesting to see if the lifetime of hiker shoes on the PCT follows a bell curve; and if the hypothesis that four or more pairs of shoes are required to walk the 2650 mile distance can be rejected, and how much of an outlier my last 1150-mile shoes had been.




More pictures of Cathedral Peak from other angles:



North of the saddle the trail crossed a silty, gray colored glacier-fed stream. In many places volunteers had recently repaired the pathway, making the walk very comfortable.



The name of the next pass was "Deception Pass", probably because the top of the saddle is not the top off a long uphill climb. After Deception Pass the uphill continued on other side of a ridge, crossing glacial moraine and reaching a lake named "Deception Lake".



More photos of Deception Lakes with their tiny islands:



North of Deception Lakes the path kept on climbing steadily almost above the tree line. Thick clouds and fog started filling the surrounding valleys. Was that a sign of weather change to a cold and wet pattern? It was hard to tell.




I descended through a field of huge rocks towards forest near a lake named "Glacial Lake". There I met the hiker "Samples" again. He was asking me if tomorrow was the last day of my journey. I answered: "Tomorrow the mountains will decide" and after some searching found a hidden spot away from water and under large trees, where I built my tent. Tomorrow at Stevens Pass I would find out if this was my last night on the PCT, or if the mountains would allow me to be their guest.