WA Section I: Hunting Camps, Rain, Sun, Alt Routes, and the Best Star Photos Yet! (23 Photos, 1 Video)

Section I is 98 miles long and runs from White's Pass to Snoqualmie Pass. September 12th - 16th.

Day 129, 12.4 miles to camp.

We took advantage of the full kitchen again and made a ton of breakfast sandwiches; English muffins, eggs, bacon, avocados, tomatoes, and cheddar cheese. There were leftovers so I packed one out for a snack. We took our time tidying the loft and getting packed up. It felt so good to have dry, clean clothes. Pickle Pacer and I joked about how soft we've become since hiking the AT last year. We used to shrug off rain, have a laugh, and keep hiking but now we flee to a town and need two nero-days to dry up and recover. We split off in small groups to walk the 0.5 back to the trail but reconvened at a picnic table at the trailhead. Making it back on trail counts as 20 miles so we earned a break. An angry hornet nest on trail stung most of us, we never heard or saw them coming, and we could hear those behind us yell out strings of curses as they passed it. We all stopped several miles in at the 2300 mile marker and aired our grievances against the hornets. Sea Lion and I departed first and soon passed a lot of hunting camps with huge tents, wood stoves, lawn chairs, and other items clearly packed in on horseback. I caught up to Sea Lion who was waiting by one such camp and she said let's quit early and camp here since it wasn't raining and there were tons of great spots. Over the next two hours, FIFTEEN hikers joined us! DJ Moose put some tunes on and it was a party. Everyone was happy to be back on the trail and dry.

Hunters know how to glamp! (Glamour camp)

I love the exhaust pipe sticking right out the side.

First there were two, then there were fifteen!

Day 130, 26.5 miles to camp.

Everyone trickled out with different plans for the section. Rain was heading our way again so some wanted to do two short days to stay at a snowmobile cabin for the night and have shelter from the precipitation. Sea Lion and I were going to stick to our plan of mid-twenty mile days up to Snoqualmie. We dropped down, way back up, and then into a corner of Mount Rainier National Park. I'm back! Clouds again snatched the views away but they did give a window of clarity for us to peer down Chinook Pass. The rained returned for the remainder of the days as we did a long walk along a ridge without any available campsites. We knew we had to cut the day short at 20 miles or make the haul to 27 miles. I listened to some Metallica and Disturbed for motivation over the rough terrain in the pouring rain. Right before dark we arrived at the first campsite and took it since there was a dry window without rain. When I went outside to brush my teeth I noticed that the clouds had vanished and the stars were in full force. I quickly grabbed my camera and captured the best astro photos yet, and some of my favorite on the entire trail.

Day 131, 24.6 miles to Blowout Mountain Trail Junction

The sun shot some rays at us in the morning and instantly put us in a great mood. I put Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles on repeat as we joyfully packed up and laid things out to dry. I fastened my socks and gloves to my pack to dry as we hiked. It was a short downhill jog to a spring where we got some water and continued to a meadow at the bottom. Then we had a 500 foot climb and at the top I realized a glove fell off. Since we camped at the first site after a seven mile ridge I knew it would be quite awhile before any hikers caught up. They also might not hike the glove forward so I angrily dropped my pack and started to hike back down to look for it. Of course it was at the very bottom of the hill, in the meadow. 2.4 bonus miles on my day. We carried on and arrived at the Mike Urich Snowmobile Cabin where we took advantage of the open field in front and dried out our tent and sleeping bags. Word has it that the locals get rowdy here and the notes scribbled on a wall mounted can-crusher confirmed it. Someone wrote "do they need this?" and the reply was "yes, idiot, lots of drink is drunk here." We hoped to get over the next hill and camp at a lower elevation but we soon hit massive huckleberry and blueberry patches that were prime picking. That slowed us down quite a bit. We started to hike up the hill and a cloud moved in and covered to top and the sun started to set. My headlamp had been fried so I had to use my cell phone lamp. Sea Lion's headlamp also broke at the mount so she had to hold it with one hand and her trekking poles in the other. We found a spot at the top of the climb but it was surrounded by a thick fog that would settle on all of our stuff so we kept going. We finally found a barely-large-enough flat spot at a junction to the Blowout Mountain Trail. We were tired, it was below the foggy cloud, and it was good enough.

Day 132, 22.5 miles to Cold Creek Camp along the John Wayne Trail.

As we were packing up, an elk hunter stopped to chat with us about hiking the amazing mountain ranges of Washington. We made it further down the drop and hit a trail magic that was packing up. A trail angel, Roger, set up a huge tent and a wood stove to provide a heated shelter for hikers the night before. If we didn't stop to pick berries for an hour we could've made it but those were the best berries I've ever eaten. Worth it. The day was overcast and mostly uneventful. We were hearing gunshots throughout the day and a few hours later got word there was more trail magic ahead. I had a crazy thought that some dang-olds were letting hikers shoot guns at their magic! This was not the case. A former thru hiker, Stumbling Norwegian, and some friends were serving up grilled cheeses, burgers, beers, and a delicious concoction they called Tasty Goodness. Moose and Midge had been there for hours and shared an alternate route to Snoqualmie. It goes down the service road along the power lines and then turns up the John Wayne Trail which was an old railroad bed. It goes along Keechelus Lake, has a few nice campsites with privies along the way, and connects to the three-mile long Snoqualmie Tunnel. The rain kicked up along the way and we considered pushing to the tunnel to camp inside to stay dry but then we realized there would probably be rats. So we turned off at Cold Creek Camp which was full of bike-packers.

A nice motivational sign in the middle of the woods.

Day 133, 5 miles to Snoqualmie.

We woke up to some drizzling but nothing we couldn't handle, especially because we had all day to recover in town. We continued down the old railroad bed and soon arrived at the Hyak Parking area which had a huge public restroom building with a covered porch that could have fit a couple of tents. I wished we hiked an extra mile last night and cowboy camped on that porch so we'd be completely dry while packing up. We continued on to check out the tunnel and made some progress into it before realizing it went completely underneath the resort town, PCT, and entire town. It was fun and trippy hiking in total darkness with just a tiny speck of white light at the end of the three miles. So we turned around and finished the road walk to the ski village. We went to the Snoqualmie Summit Inn to do some coin laundry and ran into Moose and Midge who already booked a room for the night. We were hoping to get in and out of town but decided to stay to get everything thoroughly dried out. We got our own room, exploded our wet stuff, and I was pleased that there was a box fan in the room. It fit on the arms of a chair so I could lay it flat and turn it into an air dryer. We met up across the street at the Dru Bru Brewery for lunch and then checked out the attached ski museum. Squirrel joined us and then we relocated back to the Inn to utilize their hot tub. It felt great! Sea Lion and I retired to the room to rest, blog, and kind of watch football. Twizzler knocked on the door, fresh off the trail, and joined us for a bit before heading out with some of the crew for beers and stories in a stairwell of the hotel. Sea Lion and I remained hermits and never left the room. We heard that the next stretch was one of the best of the whole trail and the weather forecast was showing four days of blue skies and sunshine.

Snoqualmie looking gloomy. Guye Peak on the left.