PCT mile 2155 to PCT mile 2303
Section mileage: 148.7
Days: 8/28 - 9/2
We left Cascade Locks after another three zero days. My friend Michelle, who I lived with in Ghana nine years ago, told me to call when I got close to Portland. I was planning to breeze through Cascade Locks and into Washington, but Craig had more work to do, and Portland has lots of coffee shops. Hopscotch's sister was visiting him from Portland, and offered us a ride to the city. And so, after hitching from Barlow Pass to Hood River, Hood River to Cascade Locks, and Cascade Locks to Portland, we arrived at Michelle and her husband Patrick's house. We spent the next day catching up and reminiscing on our crazy five months in Ghana, traveling and living in a completely different culture as college students. We went to an old elementary school that had been converted into a complex with a hotel, a number of classrooms turned into bars, and a soaking pool in a courtyard, drinking brews in plastic cups in the pool, letting our tight muscles and sore limbs relax in the water. The next day, we ate tomatoes off the vine and Michelle drove us back to Cascade Locks after work.
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| Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia River |
An hour later, Craig's friend Sam and his girlfriend Katie arrived in a truck, lugging a camper, canoe, and dirt bike. They were on their way to the coast to deliver the towed supplies to friends, and stopped by to see us on the way. We found a steep dirt path leading down to fishing docks on the Columbia River. The four of us drank wine on the rickety dock next to the fisherman's nets. We camped on the grass by the river. Another day, another night of frantic typing and it was finally time to leave town.
Since Cascade Locks is the lowest point on the trail, we had nowhere to go but up. We strode across the Bridge of the Gods, Craig unafraid and me trying not to look down through the metal grating at the river far below. Cars zoomed past in the opposite direction. On the other side, we entered Washington. The trail was dry, the berries weren't as sweet, and we were both a little grumpy to be leaving Oregon. Despite all of this, up we climbed, to a dry ridge from which we could see Mount Adams to the north and Hood to the south, and the river far below. By the end of the day, Craig's feet were in excruciating pain, so we moved slowly. In the quickly descending dusk, we arrived at our campsite in a beautiful lush gorge with a bridge that smelled like creosote.
Overnight, unbeknownst to us, a mouse chewed through the tent mesh to steal, of all things, a couple pea-flavored corn puffs. Outside the tent, it had gotten a corner of a hot dog bun. We packed up and hit the trail, passing a friendly woman setting up a 50k trail race. Water seemed to leak out of every crevice, and moss and ferns grew everywhere. Giant black slugs hung out on the trail, up to six inches long. We hiked 22 miles, stopping at a little makeshift campsite by a forest service road. We could have gone farther, but for some reason we were both tired.
We woke up late again, to the sound of hikers passing our tent. It has been hard to get up and going on the increasingly cold mornings, especially when there is condensation coating our tent and bags. It began to rain early that morning, and it was chilly. The bright side was that, being labor day weekend, there were tons of dayhikers out on the trail, offering us small acts of kindness. One couple excitedly asked if we had any trash they could pack out for us. At a road crossing, another group of dayhikers had left a bag of apples and some water. When we passed them a couple miles later, they plied us with Snickers.
Later, coming down from a misty ridge, we ran into a couple of weekend backpackers who advised us to stop at the next lake to see their church group. "Tell them Randy and Randy sent you," they urged. We were hoping to hike 30 miles, and didn't have much time for socializing, so we didn't plan to stop. When we got to Blue Lake, however, the rain had picked up, and the Randys' group had a big campfire. We strode up to their group and asked if we could warm up by their fire. While we answered all their questions, they fed us snacks: cheese, granola bars, hot chocolate with big marshmallows. The rain began to fall harder and it was now or never, so we bid our goodbyes and set off down the trail with their well-wishes and sour patch kids (!!). The rain stopped by evening, so we could set up our tent. Craig built a little twig fire to roast bratwurst and dry off his down sleeping bag.
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| Mt Adams |
In the morning, we were relieved to discover that the rain hadn't started up again. I made coffee in the tent and Craig dried his shoes off using the stove. Though it wasn't raining, it stayed cloudy and cold throughout the day. It was starting to feel like fall. Mushrooms were everywhere! Giant boletes with their chubby stalks and spongy undersides that bruised blue. Pretty amanitas with their bright caps freckled with white and little white skirts below. Chanterelles, pale and flush with the ground, unlike the yellow ones I'm used to in the east. Coral fungi, in delicate little clusters pushing through the leaf litter.
As we climbed up towards the side of Mount Adams, we saw familiar figures approaching: M80 and Trooper, and their dog Willow! We last saw them at the Saufleys, and had been trailing 1-5 days behind them until Sierra City, when we flipped to Oregon. Soon after, they flipped up to the Canadian border. We bid them luck and hiked on. It started getting really cold. We had planned to hike five miles farther, to make it a thirty mile day. Instead, we set up quickly in a field at the base of Adams, put all our layers on, and crawled into our bags to warm up. It was a cold night, and I woke up to hug my sleeping bag closer several times during the night.
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| Milky glacial stream on the slope of Mt Adams |
The next day, we had to hike 30 miles if we were going to make it to White Pass the next night. The trail was getting more challenging, taking us up and over ridges between Adams and Goat Rocks. I put my music on, and listened to slow folky music while we climbed. We were walking up a ridge, plucking blueberries and huckleberries from shrubs as we passed, when I heard a commotion over the sound of my music. Just ahead, a brown blur took off into the woods. Craig was frozen, pointing at a tree on the path, "bears!" He yelled and clapped and one adorable fuzzy brown black bear cub scuttled down from a tree and shot off after mom. A second one followed, stopping to check us out from a safe distance. We weren't the only ones fattening up for the long winter ahead on the berries along the trail.
We passed by some weekend backpackers on their way out of the woods, who offered us their excess snacks. We were getting low on food, so this was an even more amazing offer than it would be ordinarily. The hiker pulled out some bars -the good kind- and a Clementine! Fueled by the extra snacks, we booked it up the mountain in the dwindling light. We could see Adams to the south and Mount Saint Helen's (looking, of course, very volcanic with a flat crater top) to the northwest. To the north lay a jagged ridge we thought was probably Goat Rocks. We hiked until it was getting dark, to a little pond just off trail and a flattish spot for our tent and cooked the last of our meals for dinner.
We woke to my alarm at 5 am. I started the water for coffee and oatmeal, and we pushed our condensation-soaked bags into our packs, bracing ourselves against the frigid cold outside. It was dark outside of the tent, and we were in a cloud of mist. Wearing all of our layers and headlamps, we started towards Goat Rocks. To the west, the clouds began to glow, reflecting the rising sun still behind the mountains to the east. It was breath-takingly beautiful, as we ascended to the alpine zone, passing clusters of deep purple monkshood flowers emerging from the scree. The clouds moved rapidly, as if being sucked over the ridge and deep into the valley by an invisible vacuum. In the shadow of the mountain, it was still cold, but the sun began to rise. We picked our way over crevasses dug by snow melt earlier in the season, and past hikers rising in their tents. We are rarely the early risers, and it felt amazing to experience the mountain waking up.
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| Sunrise hike to Goat Rocks |
We climbed higher up Goat Rocks to a junction where we could go low (stock route) or high (hiker route). We were on a mission. A fried food by 4 pm mission. But it seemed like such a shame to be this far up in the clouds and not go higher, to a point where you could see Adams, St Helens, and Rainier all at once. We scrambled up boulders and snow fields to the top, where I snapped a couple photos and then started the climb down. The sun was shining, but the wind was blowing, chilling us to the bones. Ahead, the knife's edge path followed the narrow ridge. We teetered along the ridge, Craig confidently striding ahead, and me picking my way carefully behind, trying not to give in to the acrophobia. We arrived at White Pass at 4, cold from the wind and our feet aching. We managed to hike 2.7 miles per hour over Goat Rocks. Fried food can be a powerful motivational force. Yogi's guide said that there was a "selection of fried food" at the store, so we had spent the last hungry days pondering what kind of fried food that might mean. "I would even eat fried mushrooms dipped in ranch dressing," Craig would say, and then as an after thought, "what if they have jalapeno poppers?"
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| Goat Rocks knife edge |
As we sat in the warm cover of the store stuffing taquitos and corn dogs in our faces, it began to rain outside. A horizontal driving rain bordering on sleet. We decided to hole up at the hotel for the night to stay warm and dry. Tomorrow, we leave the PCT corridor for the great state of Montana! One of Craig's friends is getting married, so we are renting a car, picking up thrift store clothes, and basking in hot spring pools at a resort. We might even swing by Yellowstone on our way back! And then! We will run to the border, and hopefully arrive before the snow.
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