Washington Continued:
September 18th - Snoqualmie Pass - Mile 2390.9 to 2404.8
13.9 miles
Woke up in the condo, tried our best to get it together. Diana took us to the trailhead where a group of people we knew, Cobain, Geisha, etc... were about to hit the trail too. We offered them beer, and they happily accepted. We said goodbye to Diana, then sat at the Picnic table with that crew while they ate lunch and we drank another beer. Grant and I finally started hiking at 1130.
I had high hopes about this section of trail. this was the only part of the PCT in Washington I had ever hiked, and only about 5 miles of it to Kendall Catwalk. I told Cobain that I had looked out at the mountains and had always wanted to just keep going, enter into the heart of the mountain range, instead of always having to turn back around to the roar of I90 and the drive home. So it was really nice to walk across Kendall Catwalk, and then keep going!!!
Years ago, I had been hiking to Red's Pass and the Commonwealth Basin, which also shares part of the PCT before veering off to the right, when I ran into an fast hiker, probably in his early 60's. He asked me if he was getting close to "the lake" and I told him I didn't know about a lake (I was only using day hiking guidebooks at that point and didn't think about going beyond the suggested routes), so I asked him if in fact he was trying to go somewhere else, like the Commonwealth Basin where I was going. He huffed "NO!!! PCT!!! GOD!" and ran down the trail. That was the first Thru-hiker, and he was a total dick....But I digress, so I kept going and made it to "the lake" Ridge Lake!
Ridge Lake was very pretty, and there were a ton of day hikers veering off to desperately eat their lunches. There were people talking about keeping their energy up, an older man trying to make his adult son eat a lot more than he wanted for the big 6 miles back to the car, etc... I couldn't help but have evil thoughts about how funny it was that they were all so desperate for food when they weren't even working that hard. I don't know why, considering how obsessed with food I was at that point, that I found it funny how obsessed with food everybody else is too.
We kept going leaving the crowds behind, climbing up up up. The scenery was stunning, but soon it became clear that we were walking around a bowl, and the view towards I90 was never going to change! Water was scarse, so I was quizzing the occasional weekend backpacker about future water sources...Leading to much confusion, though we got pretty good intel. Towards the end of the day, right before finally cresting the ridge to the other side, we ran into a Goat. This old billy goat would not freaking get off the trail....He just kept slowly walking down the trail. We didn't want to get too close as it was a very steep drop off, and goats have been known to be pretty aggressive. Finally, we were yelling at the old goat, cmon, get off the freaking trail GOAT!!!! he finally scurried up above the trail, but we still had to pass pretty close to him in order to continue on. We ran into the Cobain crew, and they had had a similar experience minutes before, and had named him Gary. Then we heard another hiker yelling "Hey guys!!! look up, I'm like 2 feet away from this goat!!!" I'm guessing Gary the Goat is the most photographed goat in the wilderness considering how close he likes to hang out with hikers.
We kept going, found a nice trickle of a stream, and decided to hang it up a little early since we had found that unexpected nice water. Just as we were setting up camp, our friend Heather rolled in, so we all camped together, rain threatening.
It was nice to keep going, I loved Gary the Goat. Short day, but hey, no zeros!
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Keep it clean. Don't be mean.