The Lost Hat Caper and The Kat Walk

8/12/13

PCT mile 2402-2412

Elev. 3000-@5200

Up at 5:30 am and on the road by shortly after 6 Alan & Maggie took us up to Snoqualmie Pass to the trailhead. As we drove we looked into the bag Maggie had packed for us this morning.  Warm quiche slices, toasted bagels and cream cheese, chunks of ripe cantaloupe and a warm washcloth to clean up. I'm telling you it was the nicest most relaxing stay, to be so taken care of!  

This is Alan & Maggie our hosts for 2 days, you provided all that we needed and much more. Thank You!

The start of the trail was a nice fir needle thick carpet and an easy but steady climb for maybe 1-2 miles when we saw this sign. 

Then this one

Alpine Lakes Wilderness, we've stepped into one of the most wild, beautiful places I've seen.  We are not to know the rugged challenges we'll be faced with as we innocently step beyond this sign! 

We came to a resting spot 4.5 miles up in the clouds and Peggy realized she'd left her hat somewhere down the trail.  There's many reasons to have a hat;  sun, shade, a mosquito net holder.  We were close enough to go back and get it, so down she went without the backpack. For 1.5 hours everyone that passed gave me an update on whether they'd seen the hat. After about 1.5 hours Peggy was back, we rested and started hiking again.  The top of the pass was like stepping into another world. The Kendall Kat Walk was blasted out of the rock wall up at peak height with a drop off on one side.

The peaks in the back ground are where we will be going soon. 

This was my lunch break spot just over  the Kat Walk. Hiking further it was just astounding where the trail went and us with it!  The going was rough and rocky, traversing sides of steep mountains, amazed at how high the towering peaks were and then finding out the trail goes way up there.  

Because Peggy had gone an extra 6 miles today we didn't make our planned mileage, but really, we find we can't make the planned mileage anyway because the going is so hard. Concentrating on where your feet go so you don't stumble off the side of the mountain takes energy and we tire quickly. 

That's our trail snaking across the mountain!

The long view out to Snoqualmie Pass where we started this morning.

We ended up stopping after 10 miles of this amazing trail in the saddle above Joe Lake.

This is the view of Joe Lake as we were coming to it. You can see the slash of trail just above the snow on the shoreline, that's the PCT. We are tired, hungry and cold in the shade and frustrated at the low mileage today.  Lots of people on the trail today, many hiking this section from Snoqualmie Pass to Steven's Pass. My new shoes have a few tender spots that I've taped with duct tape. My menu was cheese tortellini with dehydrated spaghetti sauce for dinner. I'm in my tent by 6:30 it's cold up here and we are camped about 50 feet apart so we can't even talk. A hard first day out.