No Place To Camp

8/22/13

PCT mile 2520-2536 - 16 miles

Elev 5475- @4500

We got a good nights sleep and I'm happy there was no condensation on the inside of my tent!  The flies were crazy-bad last afternoon and evening but not active yet this morning for which we give many thanks!  We were on the trail at 6:45 with a slight uphill until we reached Kennedy Creek, another glacial runoff stream that we needed to use rocks to find our way over.  My foot slipped and went 1/2 way in so I squished as I walked this morning.  We passed where we thought the 4 young folks were camped, still in their tents at 7:30. Wading through the brush and muddy trail we arrived at Glacier Creek, a fast flowing glacial creek with a broken bridge and a huge, high bank of volcanic ash that has been exposed by slides. 

Broken bridge.

 Peggy going over the bridge.

Before we began the climb up this mountain we stopped to pick big,  fat huckleberries to sweeten the upcoming labor of climbing about 3200 feet in elevation today. My legs felt weak, like I needed more fuel to make them move.  We are climbing up the mountains that surround Glacier Peak.

One view of Glacier Peak.

We should be seeing many of the glaciers on the peak as we make our way around it in the coming days.  We crossed creeks...

and bushwhacked across others. 

Stopping for a break the flies were horrible!  

Coming around one mountain we'd be faced with another big, long traverse across the next hillside.  Up, up and up again until we were at the pass looking right at glaciers and snowfields. 

Finally, at the top!  I looked at where the trail descended off the pass, this is what I saw.

 Coming down the trail at the left see the new valley we're going through.

The trail goes through this field of boulders that have broken off and fallen from the peaks above.

This is a 5 mile section of switchbacks going down to glacial Milk Creek where we plan on camping.

Meanwhile we passed beautiful Mica Lake where we'd love to camp but can't because we need to do more miles today.

Mica Lake had ice floating in it.

We stopped to rest at this lake and enjoyed conversation with the 2 older gentlemen that we've been leapfrogging with.  They've chosen to stay here tonight while we are moving on to the bottom of the mountain. 

It was a long, long descent making our legs tired. At the bottom was the bridge over Milk Creek (where we got 2 liters for a dry camp) and a 3.5 mile uphill set of switchbacks.  No campsites anywhere and rain clouds gathering. We looked and looked but there was no place to stay the night.  The options were  to climb 3.5 miles up and hope for a campsite at the top (but we weren't going to make it before darkness fell)  or we could sleep on the trail sitting up wrapped in our down jackets covered with our ponchos. We were not happy girls at these choices but there was nothing to do but step up to the switchbacks and go.  

We hadn't climbed but a few switchbacks when we met a hiker coming down the trail southbound.  We exchanged trail information and he told us he'd seen a small place we could possibly camp,  he couldn't remember how far away the site was, maybe 1-2 miles? But he thought it was a site used to stage equipment for the trail crews that had been cutting brush on the switchbacks. To lighten our packs  (2 liters = 4#) we decided to cook dinner there on the trail, once that was done we started hiking and looking for the site. We found it after about 20 minutes and it was perfect. As night fell we walked down a side trail pounded flat by equipment but wide enough and roomy enough for 2 tents plus!  Set up was fast and before long we were set for the night. 

There's a saying " The Trail Provides." It certainly did for us tonight,  so many are praying for us and we are taken care of!