Man, I sleep so well on the trail. I don’t know if it is the exhaustion, cool air, or what. I am practically unconscious by 9 and only wake up when the dawn light is hitting me at 6. Today’s objective is Blue Lake. Reports are that it is a really good spot and this time I’m beating the other folks to it.

I strapped in early today, hitting the trial before 6. I want to finish this climb early in the morning while it is cool and have some breakfast on the peak. I forgot the one downside of being the first on the trail in the morning. Spiderwebs. Overnight, our spidery friends try to start webs across the trail and the first one through gets covered in them. That would be me. Eventually I pass a SOBO and we joke together that the trail is now clear in both directions.
I reached the top, took a picture and had breakfast. While I’m finishing up Papa and John cruise by all sweaty. Glad I got some of this work in last night.

There are some experiments going on up here. Seen half-dozen of these signs.

As usual my mind starts wandering. Let’s have a peak inside Salty J’s head for the next hour or two.

So I’m thinking experimental area. You know Bigfoot is supposed to be running around here. During my hike in 2017, my foot grew from size 10.5 / 11 to 12+. We all get real shaggy on the trail. Maybe at this point some hikers just throw off their packs and run off into the experimental area, eat some special berries, and complete the transformation. A Salty Bigfoot.

The government would have all sorts of uses for a few Bigfoot.   Sent some of them to Siberia to collect intel.  Drop a few in Tibet to stir things up.   Maybe they do some trail maintenance when they are not working covert Ops.  

I break the pull of the Bigfoot berries and head downhill.

First I start slappng bugs then I see this

By now I’m under an Oregon style mosquito assault. But Washington doesn’t stop there. How about mixing in some biting black flies? Then some tiny little shit’s that I can hardly see but love to chomp on my exposed legs. Cap that off with a bunch of horse flies constantly circling and that completes the picture. I’m practically jogging through some of the worse areas until I finally get to Blue lake at 4 or so.

Blue lake is a deep one that is a popular swimming hole for the locals. It is also popular with all of Washington’s insect horrors. I find this choice spot on a pennisula, throw up the inner layer of my tent, and dive in with my pack. Then I go to work on my unwanted  housemates in a thrashing, slapping frenzy. After 10 minutes my tent is a bug graveyard and I lay back to enjoy the view.

While I’m laying there chilling, a group of 6 teenage boys show up and jump off the ledge just to the left of my feet. Fun watching them doing flips. Wish I would have caught one on camera. A little later the bugs die down and I venture outside to setup my rainfly. Took another pic in the morning while I was packing up.

This place is definitely a 10. Even the lake water tastes pretty good. I did another 20 today. That’s ok mileage, but I need to step it up if I want to make the next resupply before I’m empty.

Got up early and headed out around 6:30. Was hoping to slip by dog lady undetected and almost made it. Her “Service Dogs” chased me up the hill.

I want to make some extra miles today, so resigned myself limit my stops. The trail drops to 1k, then there is a long climb back up to almost 5k. It turned out to be a pleasant, shady day and few bugs.

I’m switching up my routine a little, taking a page from a German hiker I walked with in 2017 through the Desolation Wilderness. He liked to get an early start, do a couple hours of hiking, then stop for breakfast somewhere.

Sitting there eating my instant oatmeal, I was watching the behavior of the horse flies. When I’m walking, I keep running into them. They start buzzing around me in tighter and tighter circles until I smack them with my hand, they lose interest, or land on me and start biting. Well it turns out these things know where the trail is and hover at about 4 feet for hours. When something walks by, the fun begins. Stupid bugs.

Aside from the horse flies, it was mostly a bug free day. I don’t have anyone to talk to, so my mind starts wandering. Today’s topic is the Washington trail designer who is clearly a different breed from his Oregon counterpart. Let’s call him “The Lumberjack”.
Whereas the Oregon designer seemed to go around the hills, The Lumberjack chooses to go over them. His trails are wide and steep. The Lumberjack doesn’t take shortcuts. I imagine he was a cigar chomping, brute of man. Get your ass up this hill, boy. I feel him shaking his head over my pathetic pace. Nobody is worthy of his praise as we all fall short of his expectations. I spend hours thinking about this character and how pissed he is about these pansies hiking HIS trail.

In forested sections of the PCT you will occasionally see metal plates nailed into the trees to mark the official trail. We call them blazes. Here in Washington they are everywhere. Clearly a sign that The Lumberjack had low expectations of our navigational acumen. It seems that one of my hiker brethren has taken to writing inspirational messages.

I hike over a 2k climb, then drop into a long valley. Like yesterday, the prime camping spots at the lower elevations near the large creeks are occupied.   

While I was looking around for a spot, I spent a little time talking to the 3 ladies hiking together.  They are 50 somethings who started at the midpoint and plan to hike to the Canadian border, then bounce back to the midpoint in Chester and hike South.   Their combined trail name is Wander Women.

This time I’m a little better prepared for a full campsite. I loaded up with water around 5 and decide to take a bite out of the next 3k climb I have ahead of me. I reach the half-way point and setup on a nice little spot next to the trail.

A few SOBO’s walk by after 8, hungry for my spot. Sorry boys and girls.  Salty J is on his game today. 

Here is a pic of the lawn I was sleeping on last night at Cascade Locks.

Now, you might think this looks like an ideal location. Nice grassy area, next to the Columbia River, plenty of space between tents, etc. Well the one downside is that the train tracks are about 100 feet away and these tracks are special. These are the super highway of train tracks, with heavily loaded freight trains passing by every 20-30 minutes….all night long. Last one I recall passed by at 1:23 AM before I finally went to sleep. My night on the railroad cost me an early start, I finally got moving around 8:30.

Most of the folks I camped with last night have already taken off. One couple, Work Horse and Chai, who I got to know yesterday have already left. I expect to see them in the coming days. They are in their early 50’s and look like they do my kind of pace.

Bridge of the Gods. What a name for this utilitarian, narrow, steel girder bridge. Whoever named this thing was a branding genius. It is a narrow two lane road across with no pedestrian walk way, so I just walked in the road with cars finding their own way around me. Took one quick pic while I was walking across.

Got on the trail and started climbing. Wow what a difference. I’m walking through an old-growth forest. I counted the gowth rings on a couple trees that had fallen over the trail and had been sawed in half. These beasts are over 150 years old. An added bonus was ZERO bugs. So it was a groovy shady climb out of the river valley filled with black berries I’d pick as I ascended.

Huge difference in the trail here. The trail is wide, well maintained, and all the fallen trees have been cleared. The footing is nice and soft. Loved it.

I’m starting to run into more Southbounders (SOBO’s). These folks have already done 500 or so miles and are getting their trail legs, so I didn’t talk to them much. They are trying to get the miles in and since we are passing each other, what’s the point in long conversation? While I don’t get to speak with many folks, there are plenty of snakes to hang  with.

When I got to the top of one of the climbs, there are the ruins of an old railway siding structure that was destroyed in a 1929 fire. Pretty much just a pile of wood and steel cables now.

Once I gained some altitude, around 3k or so, the trail alternates between shady forest and stretches of open areas filled with tons of plants with supercharged growth. It feels like I’m in a salad.

Salad Bowl

Around 6 O’clock, I hit the creek that I was targeting to camp only to find tents all over the place. Work Horse and Chai were at one nice spot next to the creek. Next was a local backpacker who absorbed a 3 tent site with his one tent and yard sale of camping stuff (camp chair, hamock, etc). The next spot had 3 ladies in 2 tents squished together.

My next alternate was occupied by Papa and John, two cousins about my age who are sectioning some of Oregon and all of Washington. Papa John, get it? Anyway, they looked comfortable in their nice spot with no room for the Salty One. I resigned myself to doing another mile or two.

The next potential spot was off trail along a dirt road. It was getting dark and I didn’t really want to be night hiking. There was some chatter about camping spots 5 minutes south of the trail, so I gave that a shot. The good news was I found it. The bad news was there was a truck parked there with an older women and 2 barking dogs that came running at me all snarling. Talking, well shouting actually, she offers to let me stay there. She says her dogs are “Trained Service Dogs”. Apparently they are trained to ignore her. Yeah….no thanks.

Saw some dirt roads leading off the main road and kept looking. Eventually I found an awesome spot right next to the river. Huge, flat, and unoccupied. As I was setting up, I could hear the lady’s dogs barking at another hiker who was in the same predicament. Then another. Poor folks probably had a crappy night.

I bounced out of the tent at 6 this morning was on the trail before 7. I was pretty charged up this morning because this was going to be a very scenic part of the trail as I followed Eagle Creek down to the Columbia.

Here is the evidence.

Falls

After a couple miles, Pancakes and her dog caught up with me just in time for the highlight of this stretch. There is this big water fall feeding inth Eagle and the park service has blown a tunnel into the rock behind it to pass through.

I took a video of the passing through and she took one of me. Here they are:

Pancakes and Super Tramp

Salty J making his passage

As I walked Through

Following that transit, I took off ahead of Pancakes. Didn’t see much of her for the rest of the day, but I did have plenty of company. Dozens and dozens of day hikers coming up the trail. I’m so glad this was Wednesday. I bet this place is a mad house on the weekends.

Cool Pool

Popping out of the trail, I followed the road down, then hit a stetchy looking Gorge Trail which dropped me on the old highway route which has been converted into a walking area. It follows the river up to the Cascade Locks and the Bridge of the Gods which winds up the Oregon segment of the trail.

There is a small state park campsite next to the river on the land that used to be occupied by the folks who ran the old locks before the dam was built. The good people of Oregon let the PCTer camp on the lawn next to the administration building.

I’ve spent most of the day cleaning up and provisioning for the next leg. This is going to be a long one of about 150 miles. I expect I’ll be in the woods for 6 or 7 days, so I’m going to be carrying a pretty heavy pack. Next stop, the Kracker Barrel general store at 2295.

Decisions. This morning before I packed up, I was still not sure if I was going to take the alternate at 2128 or just follow the PCT. The PCT route stays high and looks kind of samo-samo. The Alternate, on the other hand, drops into the river valley of Eagle Creek which looks to have some cool waterfalls. I made a plan for both routes.

I figured that either route was going to be an easy day since it was looking like the next campsite would be about 20 miles downhill from where I started. Lingered around my tent until 8 making some extra breakfast, chatting with passerby backpackers, and generally getting a lazy start.

Man was I wrong.

You’d think the trail would something like this

But what it actually was, looked more like this

This went on for hours. There were fresh fallen trees everywhere and these were not the easy hop over and keep going variety. No, these were the climb/crawl variety, contorting my body to fit through the gaps. Sometimes, the gap was too small, so I’d unsling my pack and throw it over/under the obstacle before moving on to the next one a 100 yards down the trail. It was exhausting and a little scary sometimes. Nothing like climbing over a shifting tree while hanging above a steep drop-off.

While enjoying today’s gymnastics I ran into a few day hikers and backpackers sharing their tales. Got passed by a few PCT’ers in the afternoon, Guy named Bloodbeard and a gal named Rocket. They convinced me that the alternate route was worth the diversion, so that settled my decision.

At Eagle Creek Trail Junction, I found my two PCT friends at a picnic table chatting. Rocket had her pack on and looked ready to go. Bloodbeard, on the other hand, was seated and looking very pleased with himself drinking a can of Pinot Noir. Yes, a 12 oz pop-top of Pinot. It’s an Oregon thing, they told me.

So the first 2 miles of this “trail” is really just a ratty, unmaintained foot path that goes straight downhill. I looked at the topo and it is simply a straight line perpendicular to lines of elevation. No switchbacks, lots of blowdown trees to crawl over, and, in some cases, no trail either. The drop was from 4,200 feet to 1,800 over about 1.5 miles. It seemed Rocket was waiting for someone to go first and it certainly wasn’t Bloodbeard, given his half full Pinot, so I dived in.

Rocket followed and BloodBeard caught up to us on the way down. They let me lead, picking my way down the mountain. When we lost the trail, one or both would make some suggestions from above and behind me. As promised it was straight down. It would take me all day to climb back up which I guarantee I’ll never do. The funny thing was that it eventually dump me stumbling onto a properly maintained trail. You really begin to appreciate the work that goes into trail construction and maintenance after an experience like this.

So on the maintained trail I stayed in the lead and hit the first water spot to refill. I had been dry for a couple of hours. As I was topping up, I saw Rocket eating a mouthful of blackberries. That pretty much slowed my pace to a crawl, as I was scooping them up by the handful by the trail. Those two took off and I didn’t see them again.

Got passed by another Gal named Pancakes who was hiking with her dog “Super Tramp”. The dog looked like a golden retriever, but she called him something else. Said he used to guard castles in the old days. Anyway, the dog was caked with mud and humping his own dog pack. He seemed pretty happy. Said they had done like 29 miles that day.

Got to the tent site about 5 miles into the alternate. It was a fantastic spot right next to the river and just above the first set of falls. Pancakes was already getting her tent up and making dinner. Another older gal was also there all settled in. She told me this was her first backpacking trip….ever. Well, I wasn’t going to take no for an answer so, I just dropped my pack and started setting up my tent next to her. Later that night, another PCT’er showed up and plopped down next to both of us. Guess she is getting a little more than she expected on her first backpacking trip 🙂

I fell asleep to the sound of the falls.