When we last left you, we were just leaving Seattle for a 3 day backpacking trip up in the Cascade Mountains. After excellent input from our Seattle friends, we headed to a loop in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, which linked up Pilot ridge, Blue Lake, Dishpan Gap and White Pass. All told, the hike was just a hair under 30 miles, which fit nicely into our plans of making our way northward towards Canada.
Day 1
Mu and i got on the trail a little late (shocking, I know). This was due to getting to play some basketball with friends from childhood in Seattle. A no brainer for me, but a bit of a tough sell to my lovely wife. The drive up to the trailhead was pretty quick, we entered national forest land within an hour and half (max) and then spent another 90 minutes on progressively smaller dirt roads until we got the trailhead, in a virgin forest that was a nice precursor to the hiking we were going to be doing these first miles. We started off at 6 pm.
We had only a couple hours of daylight left, which was lucky in a way with the long summer days up in the northwest. The first miles meandered pleasantly through this amazing forest, virgin old growth. I got to thinking about the dynamics of these woods that have been in this state for centuries. On one hand, the forest feels timeless. On the other, there is a tangible sense of the never ending growth and decay taking place, with fallen trees littering the ground and new seedlings sprouting from their decaying bark.
Day 2
We woke up at about 1600 feet of elevation above the river below, still in the virgin forest. Once we got on the trail, we were hiking up pilot ridge for several more miles until we broke through to the ridge running that would take us to Blue Lake. The views were stunning. Simply stunning. The wild blueberries littering the trail weren't bad either. On either side of the ridge, we had vistas alternating from glacier capped peaks in the foreground and vistas for dozens of miles. The peaks, near and far, are surprisingly steep, in some places the peaks looked pretty similar to the glaciered peaks we saw in Patagonia several months ago.
After traversing the ridges, we descended into a basin with the aptly named Blue Lake. Not the most creative name, but certainly apt. The water was both astoundingly clear and a deep blue color, with steep peaks. It was lunch time and the rain stayed away long enough for us to pump some fresh water from the lake and get a little rest. We had some work to do before nighttime, starting with a steep ascent to a notch between two peaks. When we reached the notch, we had views extended to the horizon to all cardinal directions. This part of the world is much more rugged than i had thought, and the vistas to the north extend all the way to canada with hardly any civilization. I find this is an underrated part of the world, in my mind an equal to the mountains in Colorado, Utah or California, but with not nearly as much visibility. Good for the people of Washington state to keep these parts wild.
The rest of the day went by alternating between rain and sun, hiking along ridges and then dropping down to passes, a nice mixture and one that had us making pretty good time until we nestled our tent in a campsite near a little mountain lake, made dinner and tucked in for the night.
Day 3
We woke up a bit damp due to the rain over the night, and got our stuff packed up in short order. No need to dawdle in the rain. The first bit of time on the trail (the pacific crest trail, in fact) was soupy, hard to see much but aiding us to feel the remoteness of the terrain and this wild country. In fact, the entire time we here hiking the 3 days, we never saw any traces of civilization in one of the valleys, true wilderness in that way.
After a bunch of miles, the rain lifted and the views became breathtaking. The fog swirled through the valleys, sometimes with views for miles and others socked in. Then, in front of us we saw a rainbow, and in fact the vaunted double rainbow. The primary rainbow was super bright, with clear delineated colors. It was cool to see the rainbow with the blue skies just above, a view i won't soon forget.
A fitting cap to our premier backpacking trip in the Cascades.
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