July 25.
Welp, didn’t take the full nero I planned at White Pass. Got caught up with others and hiked out a bit.
The morning was rough. I stayed in my tent too long dreading going out into the bugs so I ended up sleeping in longer than I planned. Had no water so was very dehydrated. I finally got up and starting packing and immediately had to shit. I almost didn’t make it again. Got my legs and ass bitten in the short few minutes I was out of my tent. Packed up and ran down the last 7 miles. I honestly don’t remember much about them other than I had to hike with my headnet and windshirt on the whole time. Had to filter water on the go which was not easy and ended up getting bit anyway. Fuck every mosquito.
Made it to the White Pass trailhead on the hot road to the Cracker Barrel which was more like a nice gas station run by two sassy women who were actually very nice. Peach was already there. Though he’d camped at Snow Lake a few miles before where I stayed, he passed me in the morning.
Another group of 6 or so hikers were there already. They left pretty quickly though since they’d stayed in Packwood the night before. I think they were the royal family I’d heard about and wanted to catch up but they took off before I could resupply. Mup added some lines of encouragement to my resupply box.
Salty and Potter from a few nights ago also ended up coming in. They were apparently not that far behind us the whole time.
We all hung out for a bit until Peach left to hike another 8 miles to the next site. I ended up sticking around and not going to Packwood like I initially planned. Ate a veggie sandwich and did laundry with Salty and Potter. Potter got some sad news that her dog was dying which was heartbreaking.
Mup got off work and I was able to videochat with her. Had no cell reception at Whites Pass but they did have free wifi which worked well for the calling though not downloading stuff.
Another sobo named Amanda showed up. She had a dog, an Australian Shepard named frank, with her. Immediately I liked them both. Will be fun to hike with them and Salty and Potter hopefully though Salty and Potter don’t plan to go to Trout Lake. The Kid also ended up showing up. Hadn’t seen him since Sheep Lake. He was going into Packwood then sticking around Whites Pass while waiting for his family.
Twig showed up! She came in super late having done a 25 mile day. I was stoked to see her though by then I had decided to head out to try make another 8 miles to the spring. She was/is about a half day behind me though hopefully she’ll be able to catch up tomorrow. She’s been hiking/camping alone for the past week which i feel bad about since I know how shitty it is. In hindsight I wish I had taken than proper nero in white pass and camped behind the Cracker Barrel with her. But I wanted to keep going to try to knock out some of the miles from my two long days.
Amanda, Frank, Salty, Potter and I ended up hiking out kinda late, around 6. Too late to make the planned 8 miles to the hidden spring. The climb up was immediately buggy as fuck. It was so frustrating to be back among them. Amanda and Frank made it to the first lake 1.7 miles in. It was way too buggy for me so I kept going. Left Salty and Potter putting on deet near the trailhead and I think they must have stopped at the lake too.
I ended up making it to Goat Rocks to a dry tentsite around 5 miles up which is an amazing dry windy site with way less bugs. There was actually some cell service right before the site so I called Mup again just to talk to her and hear her voice. I’m glad I’ll be able to talk to her again on Saturday, only 2.5 days from now. The last stretch after Trout Lake will be tough but hopefully I’ll be able to hike with others.
Tomorrow is an easy day, only 20 miles since I knocked out 5 more tonight which will be nice. I set my alarm for 530 so I can actually get an early start. Easy day tomorrow followed by a longer day the next day which will end up at a creek with a supposedly amazing tentsite at the bottom of a waterfall I’m very excited about.
Then an easy 16 to trout lake. I’ll have to figure out the whole hitch into Trout Lake thing but we’ll see how it goes when I get there.
Oh, and new plan for dealing with bugs. Fuck lakes, fuck ponds, fuck seasonal creeks. From now until the end of Washington I’m dry camping at exposed windy ridge campsites away from all the goddamn bugs. It’s a little colder and I’ll have to carry more water a few miles but fuck it, no more pipe lakes ever again.
Only a week left in Washington!
Plants Outside 