Day 135 - White Pass

I hit the trail early this morning, hiking by 7 am. (With sunrise now happening around 6:45 am, 7 now counts as "early".) I wasn't hiking for more than five minutes before I saw something I hadn't seen in a long time--a bear. He was sauntering along on the trail just ahead of me and going the same direction. I stopped long enough to grab my camera and then went around the corner to snap a quick photo and he was already gone. Too bad because I'd love to get a picture of one. He wasn't very big though, maybe 150 lbs. Before I had even put my camera away, I saw a deer up the hill scurry into the brush. Later I saw two more mountain goats. The Goat Rocks Wilderness certainly didn't disappoint!

My progress was slow for the first several hours of the day. It was mostly steep uphill for the first few miles and then it was hiking along things called The Knife's Edge. Essentially, you get to hike on the top of a ridgeline with steep slopes on either side of you. Add to that additional steep ups and downs on loose shale, and you've got yourself some rugged, if not treacherous hiking! I was very happy that the weather was about as ideal as one could hope for, with clear skies in all directions yet again. The views were breathtaking and the terrain reminded me of the Sierras. I was glad to get down from the tough stuff, however, because I was really tired. I had gotten to bed early the night before, but a big windstorm kicked up overnight and woke me at about 2 am. From that point until my alarm went off at 6 I didn't get much sleep. When I got up in the morning, the tent stakes on either side of my tent had been pulled out by the wind. Really it was only because I was in it that it hadn't gone anywhere.

Perhaps it was because I was so tired, or perhaps because I was just careless, but I took a wrong turn in the afternoon. I came to a junction that, according to the map was supposed to have four trails, but I could only find three. So I eliminated the one I had just arrived on and saw the best labeled one as another trail I didn't want to follow, so I took the third, which was headed in roughly the right direction when compared to the map. When I saw the man-made markings on the trees along the trail (a common practice to mark the PCT) I was very confident I was on the right path. About a mile later I was less confident because I was still descending when I should have been ascending by then. About 1.5 miles after that, I ran into a guy on horseback and it was confirmed: I was on the wrong trail. I was so frustrated. I didn't want to turn around and go back up the 1500' I had just descended, so I consulted the map and saw that the trail I was on went to U.S. Highway 12 just as the PCT did. The only problem is that I'd need to hitch a ride 9 miles west to White Pass. Turns out I had no problem getting a ride and made it to White Pass in good time, but I still feel dumb for missing my wrong turn.

So tomorrow I'm off to Snoqualmie Pass, about 100 miles away. I'm going to try to do it in four days so that I'll have an extra day to navigate the northern half of the state.