PCT mile 2592-2603
Elev 3240-6162
I woke at 4:30 am to the sound of rain then at 6 with my alarm, the rain had paused at 6 so we got up and started packing. Of course it started raining again.
I ran out to get the food bags we'd hung and saw that a squirrel had chewed holes in my food bag. Investigating further I saw that the powdered milk package was chewed open, some packaging on another item AND it chewed a nice bite out of part of my chocolate cookie I was saving for today- that Stinker! So I cleaned it up and ate the rest of my cookie right then- Grrrr. We used the small dry area under the tree by my tent to stuff our packs. I packed my tent away wet and we got going in the rain. The uphill brushy trail left us wet from mid thigh down, rain was washing down the train so I slopped and sloshed with every step and soon was muddy almost up to my knees. Because I get hot when walking uphill I keep my rain parka open, either I'm wet from rain or I'm wet inside my rain poncho because the condensation builds up inside. I hate camping in the rain!
On this rainy day I didn't find much to get excited about and found I hardly took any photos, it was too dark for my camera to get much detail anyway.
It took us awhile to hike to Hwy 20 where we walked out to a rest area, hiking trailhead and toilets. We ate lunch under the tiny overhang of a Forest Service informational sign.
There was a hiking couple waiting for his parents who were to have met them an hour ago with their passports for Canada and their last resupply box of food. We asked him about the trail north where we were all going, he told us that Rainy Pass was still 1.7 miles up the road by road walk and we decided to go back to the intersection of trail and hike up to the official Rainy Pass (instead of a rest area). Back on the trail we came to a broken log over the river, we would have to wade across. Since we'd just gotten a bit dry we decided to road walk the 1.7 miles to the actual pass. So, back to the rest area where we saw the couple and his parents who'd just driven up. I asked some details from him and we took off at a fast pace road walking along the shoulder of Hwy 20 to Rainy Pass. Road walking can be unpleasant with traffic zooming close, tossing rain at you. We hurried and tried to keep as far away from traffic as we could.
The sun came out shortly and as we reached the Rainy Pass Campground sign it was a beautiful, warm day. Taking advantage of the window of good weather we opened our packs, pitched tents and hung stuff all over the sign and nearby tree branches to dry. A few hikers came by looking for the trail north or south that we were able to direct. About 1 hour later stuff was dry and the clouds were returning so we packed up, crossed Hwy 20 and found the PCT trail heading north.
We passed a number of day hikers coming down off the trail who were interested in what we were doing, offered lots of encouragement and told us of a few spots where we could find campsites. There were 2 miles to go to water and 2 more to our proposed camp.
We would have liked to go farther but the next known water was 6 miles away and availability of tent sites for 2 was unknown. It felt unwise to be above tree line in a possible storm plus we're approaching 6100' elevation and it can be colder up high. All these were things to think about when deciding to stop or move on.
At 3:00 we arrived at our campsite, scouted around and found much nicer sites tucked down in the trees that weren't visible from the trail. A tiny stream ran down by our camp where I found gentians not quite blooming. The sun was patchy with clouds pouring over the peaks scudding fast across the sky toward the northeast. All our wet clothing was laid our to hopefully dry and while Peggy took a nap I poked around and found a huge flat topped boulder to climb on to get a view of the cloud show.
Two hikers came in looking for campsites, one a thru hiker and the other a 44 y/o man from Portland, Oregon who was really interesting to chat with. He makes his own gear so I asked him a lot of questions, inspecting gear and discussing going stoveless, eating cold food. In S California, where wildfires destroy forest every year, some stretches of trail ban all stoves. Many hikers find not cooking a real option, no stove = lighter packs and a measure of freedom from conventional camping. They add water to a regular meal at noon (some use an old plastic peanut butter jar with screw on lid) and it sloshes in the pack's side pocket for hours until the noodles, rice, beans etc are edible at dinner time.
My own food pack still seemed heavy, I've been distracted by rain etc. and haven't been eating the extra food I packed from Stehekin. I'll do better tomorrow.
There was an alert at the trailhead about bold mountain goats following people trying to get close, it told you to wave your arms, toss rocks and yell loudly to get them to back away. Their horns are sharp and they can be dangerous. They may be looking for salt on sweaty hikers, Yikes!
Our camp for the night.
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