Day 4. PCT 16.5 miles

Well, that happened. Super crazy winds last night blew a bunch of dust into our tent. None of our previous tents had this issue, but were seeing a trend here with this one. Because of all the dust in the zippers they are already getting hard to pull and it’s a brand new tent! Might have to contact them soon. 


Mornin’


Sun Peak



We slept a little more than the night before since the winds kept us up for awhile. We camped at the bottom of a big 7.2 mile climb and in the morning that’s how we warmed up for the day! At least it was beautiful out!!










Waptus Lake















Today was ALOT better in terms of lack of mosquitos. We only had to really worry about them at the very tippy top of our 7.2 mile climb, where we stopped in an absolutely gorgeous meadow to have some lunch! 


Lunchtime pano


Ahhhhhh!!


Indian Paintbrush


This guy let me get really close 


This girl traded me some of her prized Peanut M&M’s for some of my Cheetos 


Lots o flowers



Well, after over 7 miles of up, guess what came next? Yup. Over 7 miles of down... Claaaaaasic Washington! It was Switchback O’clock (for a couple hours), but eventually took us back down into the valley (where there were a few blowdowns and one exciting river crossing). 






Can’t find the Salmonberries?! Head up-river!!

 After the crossing, we started heading back up through a burn area that I vividly remembered from my 2018 hike. The purple flowers and lighting were so pretty. Claire and I ended up finding a nice little spot tucked away in the very middle of a group of tall living trees among all the burned ones (no widow-makers here). 


Claire engulfed in purple flowers


Waterfall near camp

Just now, about 9:15pm, what I thought was a super late hiker came down the trail and into our campsite. I thought it odd that they had no headlamp so I yelled “Hey!” and we heard a startled clamber, and then silence. Claire saw a big shape standing still and looking at us. I shined my headlamp over there, but since the no-see-um netting on the tent makes it impossible to see out, I opened the zipper and looked directly at it. We were both relieved it was just a big deer. It’s safe to say that all three of us were spooked! 

Thanks for reading!

Comments

  1. Michael IrvingAugust 28, 2020 at 9:52 PM

    I’m jealous of your clear views as I hiked it in the smoke. One of my favorite camps/lakes is right by your camp...Spectacle Lake.

    ReplyDelete

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