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Day 138: Fall in the high country

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Day 138
Miles: 21
From Dewey Lake to small creek

The lake is quivering but still this morning, the sky grayer than yesterday. We can still hear the elk calling to each other like they did last night, an eerie serenade. Having not seen an elk in the act of bugling (or, any elk at all), I still have a hard time believing that these alien cries come from a furry earth-bound herbivore.

The low skies of the morning just remind us of the weather forecast we looked at back at White Pass. Forecast: rain’s a’comin. In the Northwest, once the rain starts… that might be it for our blue skies until spring. Or it might not. We talk about it with our fellow hikers when we cross paths on the trail, optimistically framed – “Well, wouldn’t want to have carried this damn umbrella for 2000 miles for nothing!” we tell each other.
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Day 137: Another mountain

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Day 137
Miles: 19
From Pipe Lake to Dewey Lake

In the middle of the night I get up to pee, trying not to trip on the tarp guylines (I always trip on the tarp guylines) and look up. Even with my eyes blurred over with sleep, I am staggered. The stars! I have one of those rare glimpses into eternity, a split-second flash where I really understand how big infinity is, and then I’ve lost it again. I walk to the shore of the lake and sit on a rock for a few minutes and look at the sky, cold and tired. Amazed at the universe. Amazed I exist. Humbled to be here.
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Day 135: razor’s edge

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Day 134
Miles: 19
From camp by Snowgrass Meadow trail junction to Ginette Lake.

When my first alarm goes off at 6:15 I hop straight out of bed, pee, then… then I ruin a good thing and crawl straight back into my sleeping bag. An hour later I figureI really should get up. We’re now closer to the fall equinox than the summer solstice, and we’re losing daylight. Only a few minutes less a day – but it’s starting to cut into our hiking time. I should stop wasting it on the front end.

The two weekenders gift us the remnants of their instant espresso mix and powdered milk (caffeine! woohoo!) and we start off. The best part of Goat Rocks Wilderness is supposedly waiting for us this morning.
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Day 134: Mountains as people and the search for beauty

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Day 134
Miles: 18
From the ponds to Snowgrass Meadow

We start the day with our faces in blueberry bushes. Although I don’t know if “bush” is the right word – the teeny plants next to the ponds are only a few inches high. That just makes it all the more surprising that they are so prolific. I wonder why some patches are so flush with the little blue gems, but most of the blueberry bushes we pass have no blueberries at all. It makes it difficult to tear myself away from a good patch… who knows how many miles to the next one?

We get stuck in another patch, then in a huckleberry patch. Then the view opens up for a minute, gives us a glimpse through the trees, and – there is Mt Adams again. Still with us.
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Day 133: high camp and a drag

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Day 133
Miles: 17
From lava flow campsite to tiny lakes

The last warmth in the black lava rock surrounding our campsite has disappeared by the morning, and the sun has not yet risen above the mountain. It’s great tongue of ice, the Mt Adams glacier, is a massive tumble of ice that looks frozen in time and not just in temperature. The trail, too, is frozen, with a deep frost in the loose dirt that has formed into feathers and fibers of ice that crunch underfoot. I had thought that I’d overpacked on clothes when I left Portland, but I think now I may have brought just enough.
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Day 132: High Camp, busted

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Day 132
Miles: 11.5
From Trout Lake to campsite on old lava flow

The monastery hostel has big picture windows and no shades, facing northeast to Mt Adams. I ditched J in the middle of the night for my own twin mattress, but as day creeps up on us he sneaks back in beside me, and we watch the great face of the mountain turn towards the sun.

We have hot tea and sausage, eggs, toast, fruit, hash browns, and conversation for breakfast. Kozen sits down and eats with us. (I wonder if he considers this breakfast? He’s been up in prayers since 3am.) He chats with us about the trail, life, religion, and then completely floors us asking: “Does this journey have a spiritual component for you two?”
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Day 130: the game of tired

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Day 130
Miles: 20
From saddle on ridge to Junction Lake

Dawn breaks; my body creaks as I stretch myself awake. The trail is back with me again, inside all my muscles. A yawn that extends all the way through me toes sends my leg muscles into spasms. Oof. It might be a long day.

Either way, it’s nice to wake up to a new world, and a quiet one. We finish the uphill we started last night, and then we hit the lava. An old lava flow has turned this place into a strange plateau of wicked black rock where stunted trees stand up from its inhospitable surface and the ground rolls and gapes hazardously. The trail follows the western boundary of the flow, and it stands like a wall beside us, keeping us on track.

This is the part of the day I think of as “morning happiness”. Tired, aching, regardless – the simplicity of the trail sits with me and each step is a testament to the act of living. I’m not in a box of drywall and carpeting, I’m not stuck in a chair, I’m walking – just walking – going on walking. Even on my worst days here, there is always this moment. Some days the shelf life is about 5 minutes, but the next day, it is always here again.
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Day 129: bursting the bubble

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Day 129
Miles: 22
From rock creek to campsite on a saddle

‘Twas the night before hiking
And all ’round the campsite,
It was all to my liking
All tucked in for the night –

When outside of my shelter,
I heard a great clatter!
Everything now helter-skelter
Lights and shouting, feet a patter!

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Day 128: easing into things

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Day 128
Miles: 15
From Gilette Lake to Rock Creek.

Old routines, new again, old again. We filter our water, pack our packs. Uphill today – we’re starting the climb away from the Columbia River, heading towards high country. We’ve gotten up sort of late, as usual, and the day is warm. Last views of the Columbia, friends. We’re headed north.

The Columbia disappears behind us. My legs feel heavy and sluggish. Some of the other hikers who had been at PCT days have caught up with us, and we leapfrog with 3D and the Reverend Blisster. (We were a couple days behind the Reverend for all of Southern California, and read his name on countless trail registers. And here he is!) The forest here is still sort of dry, not too different from where we left off in northern California. Our views for the day have turned out to be brief, and we walk through the woods, warm sunlight filtering in onto our sweaty heads and backs.
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Day 127: no t(r)olls on the bridge

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Day 127
Miles: 5!
From Cascade Locks to Gilette Lake

Thunder Island is bright and windy, festooned with little colored peaks and domes, populated with a tribe of hairy, smelly hikers. It’s morning!

I stayed up way past hiker midnight last night, and I’m tired this morning. J and I wander around Cascade Locks for a bit while PCT Days gets started. The Bridge of the Gods is closed to cars for 45 minutes this morning to allow pedestrians to enjoy the bridge, and it feels like a goodwill border relations gig up here, the Oregonians mingling with the Washingtonians, people snapping pictures and playing bagpipes. We stand up on the bridge and watch the mad rush of the Columbia through the metal grating below our feet, but we save our first steps into Washington for later.
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