PCT Section 8: Trout Lake to White Pass
After taking a break from writing these blog posts, I’m back to writing about my journey on the PCT! We left off in Trout Lake, a town in Southern Washington that was my favorite town stop during my hike. I left Trout Lake after a short day and hiked into the Mount Adams Wilderness. This section was beautiful, but the first 10 miles out of town were through a massive burn area. The first image I took on this day was looking south to Mount Hood in Oregon, framed through the skeletons of burned trees.
As the day went on, I was frustrated trying to take pictures because there were no clean views of Mount Adams and there were so many dead trees. That really forced me to focus on smaller details. A small creek with a deep blue color and lupines in the foreground made for a fun distraction to photograph in the afternoon, and I was able to pick out one of the massive glaciers on the side of Mount Adams that captures the scale and beauty of this place.
After quickly passing Mount Adams, the following day took me into Goat Rocks Wilderness. This wilderness area is typically a highlight for thru-hikers, known especially for the Knife’s Edge. I still enjoyed this section, but it definitely wasn’t my favorite in Washington. This area started with some of the worst mosquitoes I saw on my entire hike. It was so bad that for lunch I set up my tent to take a break away from the bugs. I started to climb higher, and set up camp near a lake for the night. The following morning, I got an early start and was greeted by a beautiful sunrise lighting up Mount Adams!
I continued to climb higher and higher, and was greeted by beautiful views in all directions.
I was entering into some truly alpine terrain, the first I had really encountered in Washington. I kept climbing, climbing, endlessly moving my body uphill.
Finally, I reached a pass where I could begin to see the Knife’s Edge and Mount Rainier to the north! As you can see here, there was a strange haze in the atmosphere that was interfering with the summit of Rainier. While the landscape around me was stunning, this haze made photography challenging and prevented me from capturing the kind of images I was hoping to create.
I apparently hadn’t had enough climbing for the day, so I added an extra 800 feet of elevation gain by climbing up Old Snowy, an alternate that goes above the PCT. This was where I could truly feel the strength of my legs; I cruised up this section without too much of a struggle. The views from the top allowed me to clearly see the trail running down the famous Knife’s Edge that I would be soon be hiking on!
As I completed that stretch and exited the high alpine, I entered back into the trees. Here I was struck by the incredible quantity of paintbrush, the bright red flower you can see below. The second I got back into the trees, the mosquitoes were there to greet me! That night I set up my tent as soon as I got to camp, and hardly left it the rest of the evening to hide from the ever present biting bugs.
On the last morning of this stretch I was greeted by gloomy weather and a slight drizzle. I only had 6 miles until I reached White Pass, my next resupply stop, so I quickly pushed through White Pass Ski resort to the gas station where I would be able to get more food!