We crash back into Lone Pine, totally exhausted physically and emotionally from our week in the Sierras. We take a day at the Dow Villa historic hotel, just laying in bed. We only get up to get Mexican food.
The next day, we catch the 6 am bus to Reno. I sleep almost the entire bus ride. 6 hours later we arrive in hot, sunny Reno. We check into another motel, then go about preparing our food resupplies for the state of Washington.
We go to Costco, which is overwhelming for Filip-stores aren’t this big in Sweden.
We go to a few more stores and buy what feels like piles of food. The next morning, we carefully split the food into shopping bags by Washington town and write the town and how many days on each bag with Sharpie- “White Pass-6 Days.” It’s a lot of coordination, but it’s something that I have done so many times, it’s like clockwork.
We carry all the food in our backpacks to the post office and mail 10 boxes of food. The postmaster is friendly and chats with us-she tells us they have had more PCT hikers than normal in Reno, this year. “That’s because everybody is flipping because of the snow,” I explain.
We head back to the Reno airport and take our flight up to Seattle. My old friend Deling, climbing mentor from the Seattle Mountaineers, graciously picks us up from SeaTac airport and brings us back to his house for the night.
We wake up around 8 o’clock and join Deling for coffee and breakfast at a local coffee shop. Then Deling drives us to Ross Lake. I have a great time catching up with Deling along the way on all of our mutual friends and acquaintances, the Mountaineers club, Seattle happenings.
We get to the East Bank trailhead on Ross Lake at around 1 pm. Deling joins us for the first few miles, easily striding along-we have our backpacks, but they feel mercifully light with only summer gear now-we left the ice axes, crampons, bear canisters, and heavy down coats in the storage unit. We do have 7 days of food for this section, which connects part of the Pacific Northwest Trail around Ross Lake to the PCT. When you southbound the PCT, there is no legal way to walk into the US from Canada, so you have to hike up to the border in some manner, then backtrack. I thought this route would be a little prettier and more interesting than just rehiking 30 miles of the PCT.
The trail is quiet, green and gold in the afternoon light, fragrant, wood and dark earth.
I feel like I need to land-like I am not ready to be in this northwestern fairyland that I know so well, that I spent so many years in. All of the people, and social dynamics, and hard work, and handwringing, and theatre that went on leading up to and in the Sierras-that’s all behind us now, a dream to the south. Now Filip and I walk alone in this quiet soft green forest. The only sound is the wind in the trees, and occasional creeks-a bird singing here or there.
We walk on as the afternoon becomes golden evening. We spit out onto the shore of massive Ross Lake and set up the tent.
The sun slants across the snow-capped peaks high above us, and we make dinner, and lay down to sleep next to the slate-grey lake. We hiked 9.3 miles today, the 62nd day on the PCT.
We wake up on glasslike Ross Lake late, and slowly get our day started. Everything feels more relaxed now. We have coffee and breakfast. Small boats motor calmly by, leaving a wide V behind themselves on the flat water. We don’t start hiking till nearly 10:30.
We follow the East Bank trail for a little longer, then turn up on the Devils Ridge trail.
It’s 6000 feet continuous gain from here to the top of Devils Dome, which almost never happens on the PCT. This, however, is a section of the Pacific Northwest Trail, which connects to the PCT at Holman Pass.
Filip is a little ahead of me and I see him stopped, talking to 2 lean men with tiny backpacks. For a moment I think they are PNT hikers, but the backpacks aren’t quite right. They are ultra runners who came out to run the Devils Dome loop in 2 days.
“The trail is a mess,” says one, dejectedly. “Blowdowns, and it’s overgrown. A real
pain in the ass.”
“Yah. NOT runnable,” adds the other.
We thank them for the information and continue upwards. At the National Park boundary, there is a laminated map indicating trail closures for fires, dated September 2022. This was the fire last year that shut the northern PCT terminus down for so many, right as they were finishing their hike. I pack out the papers-those closures have been lifted now.
The trail stays high-quality until about halfway up, then there are a few blowdowns, and the plants push slightly into the trail. It is not nearly as bad as the PCT around mount Jacinto, for example.
“You know, I think those guys were mostly disappointed because they couldn’t get the times they wanted on their run,” I say to Filip. He chuckles.
We continue to sweat steeply upwards. I take a picture, and then a better picture, and then a better picture of stunning Mount Jack, with its wide glacier, across the valley. We are truly in the North Cascades.
We finally clear the trees as the shadows are getting long. We find a tiny water source to collect water from for a dry camp, and then I laugh as we round the corner to reveal a beautiful meadow with a cascading waterfall.
“Do you want to camp here? It’s probably windy on top of the dome,” I say.
Filip explores the tent site options in between the little rivulets coming down from the waterfall. “Sure.”
This is one of these places that seem to only exist in your dreams-bright green grass, cool water, high peaks all around and floating off in the distance. “If I focus my eyes closely, at the meadow, it’s like I’m back in Swedish Lapland-but then I look up, and we’re in the Alps,” Filip says in wonder. Like a dreaming mind that merges places and times, we are alone together in our own reality now, a walking dream that has only just begun.
We lay down as the sky is turning marmalade orange and pink, behind the distant peaks. We hiked 10.2 Miles today, the 63rd day on the PCT.
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