PCT Section 9: White Pass to Snoqualmie Pass
Some sections of the PCT, and some moments in particular, led to my most inspired photography on trail. I share this because I’m telling the stories of my journey through my photos, so naturally I’m going to have more images from certain locations and less from others. This section, White Pass to Snoqualmie Pass, was a section where I took a lot of great photos!
The first day started off beautifully, with lush green meadows and flowers everywhere. The morning brought fog and wonderful clouds, and I was overjoyed at the conditions around me. I was struck by this particular meadow and the fog that was continuously blowing through and changing the scene before my eyes. This was just off the trail, and a quick initial double take led to me standing here for almost a half hour taking it in. The first image captures the full scene, and the second narrows in on the lone tree that stood out from the rest.
Later that day, I crossed into Mount Rainier National Park. The PCT crosses through the park for 7 miles, and featured some stunning up close vistas of Mount Rainier.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, the wildflowers in early August were at their peak! It felt like never ending patches of color dotting the landscape.
I camped at Sheep Lake, a popular day hiking destination just 2 miles from Chinook Pass. This lake was nice, but the wildlife there was incredibly socialized to humans and bold in trying to steal food. I ended up with a pile of rocks stacked beside my tent that I threw at chipmunks and birds that got too close.
The following morning I woke up early in hopes of seeing the sun rise. I didn’t know what I would see, but I was hopeful about the conditions when I saw some clouds in the sky! The first shot I took was looking south towards Mount Adams, which caught the first light.
I reached Sourdough Gap as the sun broke between the clouds, lighting the landscape in beautiful golden light. This is one of those moments on trail that I’ll remember forever. I had to stop and do my best to make an image.
In the high of the moment, I proceeded to get lost, the only time this happened in 1,000 miles of hiking! I missed a trail junction where the PCT dropped down, instead staying high on the ridgeline hoping to get a view of Mount Rainier. I crested a small pass, and was greeted by this view of the mountain! I quickly realized my mistake and backtracked a quarter of a mile to the trail.
The views just wouldn’t stop on this morning.
As I passed Crystal Mountain, I was still working my way along high ridges with views in all directions. The PCT entered a burn area here, and this allowed me to create one of my favorite black and white images from the whole trip. I call this one “Skeletons” because of how the dead trees caught the light and stood out.
I mentioned passing Crystal Mountain, and as I went through this area I needed to capture this unique vantage point of the ski resort! I hiked for over a mile trying to line up this shot with the top of the resort dwarfed by Rainier in the background.
One of the beautiful things about a thru-hike is that you always have to keep moving forward. I passed through one of the most stunning sections of trail I had seen up to that point, and in the afternoon walked through miles of burned trees in the hot sun. I camped in a popular location near a meadow that night, and the following morning was woken by elk bugling! Sadly I wasn’t able to get any photos of them, but the meadow itself was quite beautiful.
After this, the last 40 or so miles of the section were much less scenic. The PCT stayed in the trees with few viewpoints. Because of that, I focused my creative energy on taking pictures of the forest around me!
This image I call “Dragon’s Neck”. The main tree is slightly red, has texture that reminds me of scales, and is curved like the neck of a massive creature!
On my final day in this section, I accidentally hiked 26 miles and made it to Snoqualmie Pass! I was planning to camp after 18 or 20 miles, but I couldn’t find a campsite, so I kept pushing forward. I was picked up that evening by a friend and went to Seattle, where I stayed with my sister! I took a double zero (two days off), ate massive quantities of food, and prepared for the last 3 sections of trail before I would reach Canada.