PCT Day 89

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PCT Day 89, 09 August 2022 (Tuesday)

“Improving Views And Tentsite Blues”

Start Location:	Trout Lake	Destination:	Wilderness Campsite
PCT Miles Day 89:	26.8	Cum PCT Miles:	1,610.5
Non-PCT Miles Day 89:	0.6	Cum All Miles:	1713.3
PCT Miles Remaining:	1,042.3
Elevation Gain Day 89:	4,341	Cum Elevation Gain:	276,571

I got on the earliest shuttle this morning with Dennis being the driver (Pat was the driver yesterday).  A lot of today would be in the Mt. Adams Wilderness, so it promised to have better scenery than the prior days in Washington.  Indeed that was the case.

At one point today, I could see Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Rainier all from the same spot on trail.  Today is the first section of PCT in Washington that I would recommend for day hiking or an overnight backpacking trip.  Just be sure to bring your bug spray.  Mosquitoes seem to vary in aggressiveness by area, and the ones out here are pretty aggressive, they are like sharks, and you are just human chum.

Periodically throughout the day water spritzed from the sky just to remind you of what state you’re in.  Some of the spritzes were so short and sparse that they left the trail looking like leopard skin fabric, with each drop of rain representing individual spots in the pattern.  Sometimes the spritzes were persistent enough to tempt me to stop and pull my rain jacket out of my pack, but I knew once I did that, I would no longer need the jacket.

There was a little adventure today crossing Adams Creek.  It was probably the most challenging creek crossing of the entire hike, but I managed to do it with only getting my right foot wet.  It might be obvious from reading today’s post and seeing today’s photos that today was probably the best day I’ve had on trail for a couple weeks. If this keeps up, I may actually end up liking Washington.

The day ended on a sour note though.  Once again, it was challenging to find a tentsite.  I ended up hiking a couple more miles than I wanted and got to a decent site, but it was full of mosquitoes.  Despite the improving scenery, Washington continues to be frustrating.  It’s hard to give this place a passing grade when it continues to have glaring and significant failures.

Hikers on the way back to the trail heading towards Mt. Adams

Continuation of the Obstacle course

Part of the obstacle course, low hurdle, high hurdle

 

The flat top of Mount Saint Helens

There’s a reason this area is named the Mt. Adams Wilderness

First look at Mount Rainier

It might be hard to tell from the photo but the water in this stream is a little bit cloudy from the glacial silt coming off Mount Adams

Adams Glacier on Mt. Adams

Lewis River

Adams Creek, direct from the glacier, and a challenging creek to cross (harder and tricker than it looks in the photo)

What’s this? An open meadow in southern Washington, who would’ve thought?

Killen Creek

Lava Spring

 

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