This Journey Just Became an Adventure — Adventures With Samson-The-Bear

On 9/12 we did 24.6 miles to a small seasonal spring and slept at 4,092 feet. On 9/13 we did 16.4 miles to Snoqualmie, WA and slept at 3,019 feet. On 9/14 we did 15 miles to Mineral Creek Trail and slept at 4,922 feet. On 9/15 we did 20.8 miles to Spade Creek, and slept at 3,095 feet. On 9/16 we did 23 miles to Trap Pass and slept at 5,783 feet. On 9/17 we did 12.6 miles to Stevens Pass and slept at 4,053 feet. On 9/18 we did 22.5 miles to a seasonal creek and slept at 4,715 feet. On 9/19 we did 22 miles to Baekos Creek, and slept at 3,944 feet. On 9/20 we did 22.8 miles to just past East Fork Milk Creek and slept at 5,744 feet. On 9/21 we did 24 miles to a small seasonal stream, and slept at 5,377 feet.

Frizzle's boyfriend joined us at White Pass to hike with her for a section. Since he does not have 2,000 miles on his legs SketchPad and I pulled ahead. We decided to wait for them in Snoqualmie, WA. The town was little more than a gas station and a motel, but we did find a small brewery and pizza so it wasn't too hard of a decision to take an unexpected nero and grab our last shower of the trip.

We climbed out of Snoqualmie and we were back in the mountains. The first half of Washington we aimed to do about 25 miles a day, but from here on out, we were shooting for about 20 miles a day. The daylight is getting shorter and the nights and mornings are extremely cold which makes putting in larger miles more difficult. Also the terrain is getting more challenging. We were told we were not in the Northern Cascades yet, but the mountains already looked very ominous; most of the mountains looked like jagged fins rising out of the ground with scree and snow covering their peaks. The new terrain has changed the trail since a lot of the mountains cannot be traversed we have to go up to a pass and down to a valley to cross each ridgeline. Frizzle counted the switchbacks we hiked on one of the days and counted over 230 switchbacks in 21 miles. Since the trail is taking a less direct route, we are actually heading north at a much slower pace. In Northern Washington a typical day we walk 21 miles of trail, but we will only physically be 7 miles from where we camped. In this area, our net elevation change for a day is close to 16,000 feet.

While the terrain is getting much harder we don't really mind. We have over 2,400 miles under our feet so "hard trail" is relative and we are up for almost any challenge. The rugged terrain has given away to some of the most spectacular views and pristine wilderness giving the High Sierras a run for their money. The water is so clear coming off the mountains I have to remind myself how much it would suck if I got sick from not filtering my water; but just looking at the crisp clean water that is flowing everywhere its hard to bring myself to filter such clear water. While we have 2,400 miles under our belt, they were mostly under clear blue skies, but that tradition ended shortly after Snoqualime. We were hit by two rain storms back to back in-between Snoqualime and Stevens Pass. We knew the storms were coming from the last weather report we got and we watched the weather front move in over Catherderal Pass. The skies opened up the day after the front came in and poured freezing rain on us. Unlike the Midwest where a heavy storm will come and go within a few hours, the weather tends to stick around in the West and we were saturated for days. Morale dropped to an all time low since we were no longer enjoying the hike but just trying to keep warm by moving. There is no way to stay dry after hiking for 48 hrs in the pouring freezing rain. We managed to keep our sleeping bags dry, so we were never in grave danger, but it was definitely a test of our stamina to push through the storms. We rolled into Stevens Pass extremely hungry as we had used additional calories to stay warm that we did not ration for. I have no idea how many additional calories you need when you are cold, but your basal metabolic rate accounts for about 80% of your normal calorie consumption, so when you are cold, you are burning an even higher amount of calories which we certainly did not have in our food bags.

We left Stevens Pass, still with soaking wet gear. The storm had past, but we were hiking in temperatures around the mid 40s with overcast skies so there was no chance to dry out. Over the next few days the clouds started to dissipate and we took an extra long lunch on top of a mountain to dry out all of our gear. We were ecstatic that night to go to bed in a dry tent and dry clothes since the past 5 days we slept in our cold wet gear. It was nice to sleep for one night in dry gear, but the next day we woke up in a cloud. As we gained elevation, we hit the nastiest storm I have experienced on trail. No matter how fast I moved I could not keep warm, I had all of my layers of clothes on but still could not keep warm. The rain turned to sleet as we went higher up the mountain. We talked about turning back but the topo should that we would be entering a valley shortly. We pushed on and went down into the valley. The valley gave us some reprieve as we shivered trying to eat lunch and get some calories in us. It was only 1:00pm but we considered setting up our tents and waiting out the storm. As we were discussing where to camp we met a Yo-Yo hiker who was going south bound (a Yo-Yo hiker is a hiker who heads north, then hits the border and goes south). We told him the storm had taken a lot of energy and morale and we were going to set up tent. The Yo-Yo hikers name was Napoleon and gave us one of the most inspirational speeches I have ever heard. I cannot repeat the speech as it was extremely vulgar and could make a sailor blush, but after his impromptu talk, he were amped up and decided to climb out of the valley and over towards Glacier Peak. We quickly climbed up 3,000 feet onto an exposed ridgeline where we got our first glimpse of Glacier Peak. As we were admiring the formidable mountain infront of us, it disappeared behind a storm cloud and proceeded to dump snow on us. (I'm not sure what Napoleon does for a living, but he should be a used car salesman). We had no choice but to continue on and proceed down the backside of the ridge through the storm. It dumped 3 inches of snow on us in 45 minutes. Trail navigation was difficult but we were able to stay on trail for the most of it until we were able to make it back down below snow line and into the rain again. It was an adrenaline fueled day and we had to fight to stay awake as we were eating dinner, both of us were sound asleep by 7:00pm.

SketchPad and Frizzle the day out of Snoqualmie

Sketchpad and I ran into Amoeba and Boy Scout drying their gear under Glacier Peak

Ran into Heartbreaker as he was drying out his gear in a bridge

The Marmot did not seem to mind the weather