9/29/2023
Section: Milepost 2217.5 to 2231.6
Total Trail Miles: 2229.5 Miles
Distance: 4.1 Miles
Moving Time: 05:19 Hrs
Elevation Gain: 1946 ft
I woke up on the ground again this morning. Sleeping pad is really done - no amount of patching is getting me more than a week now. The good news was that there was no rain this morning. The atmospheric river had passed over us and, while the sky was still gray, things were looking up! We woke and took stock in our surroundings, which is common on mornings after we crash land in the dark. It’s nice to see where we actually ended up from more than the outer rim of a headlamp beam. The Sawtooth Trailhead is indeed just a wide open gravel lot with a few picnic tables in the middle and some outlaw fire pits set around. This part of Washington has a surprising number of little pockets of open country and we are currently in one. We should have an epic view of Adam’s right now but, unfortunately, she is shrouded in clouds this morning.
In the absence of rain, we were able to pack things up a little more carefully and I was able to take a look at some weird red blisters that are forming on my heel. They don’t hurt but I think they are a product of walking continuously in wet socks. The picnic tables are a blessing for us because you can organize and eat up off the ground - even if the benches are still soaked. Plus it’s a nice flat spot to set up one’s stove. After coffee and, for me, a bland protein puck, we completed our warm-ups and shouldered our bags before heading off down the trail.
The path today is relatively flat, winding northeast through the Gifford Pinchot National forest on what are likely old lava beds. From Sawtooth Trailhead the PCT passes between East and West Twin Butte before turning due east at 3.5 miles in and crossing NFSR 8851 at Mosquito TH. The trail then passes near Steamboat lake where it begins a 500 foot descent into the Trout Lake Creek drainage from which it promptly reascends 500 ft back to a ridge just west of Eckhart Point. It continues on this ridge, due north, all the way to NFSR 23 where the stage ends at 3900 ft.
Today, again, was pretty uneventful from a trail perspective. I do need to walk back what I said a few posts ago about there not being many crossroads in Washington. Here, in this early section, the trail is littered with them. None of them would be super fun to get into on a car, but it also would not be impossible. We were back in our summer attire, the rain gear was back in the backpack, though not too far in that we couldn't readily get to it, but the rain never came and we passed through the open country quickly without seeing a single soul.
Near the FR88 PCT Trailhead, we found a laminated sign providing Trout Lake Trail Angel information and I took a picture of it. We didn’t really have anything in the way of cell service here but if we got some we would make use of it. Towards the middle of the day we had decided that we were not going to try and make it to Chinook Pass. As I said earlier, and am now clarifying, beyond White Pass, there are limited outs. When we left Independence a few days ago, we had considered how far we wanted to get into Washington before coming out for my sister's wedding. Of the 3 options Snoqualmie was the ludicrous option, Chinook Pass was the optimistic option and White Pass was the safe option. If we hadn’t been swimming the PCT over the last 3 days we likely would have been okay to push on to Chinook and have Josh and Maddy drop the van there. As it was though, we were tired, wet and bedraggled and a night in Trout Lake to dry everything out was looking better and better with every step we took. Chinook and White pass aren’t really that far apart - only about 28 miles, but dropping an extra day meant that we could come out and have an afternoon in Trout Lake, which we would need to get everything dry again, and then we could take the remaining three days to finish out with reasonable mileage per day. So that became the plan.
We walked on and in a few miles arrived at NFSR 23. This was the last road back into Trout Lake and we had arrived at 2 pm so we felt confident that, even on this desolate backroad, we would likely be able to pick-up a hitch. We still had no cell service so there was no way to get a hold of a trail angel out here. A few cars went by and we stuck our thumb out in an attempt to get a ride but they whizzed by without looking back. Eventually, though, a big dodge truck showed some brake lights and pulled over. It had the look of a ranch truck and we suspected hunters out here scoping for elk season but, upon depositing our backpacks in the bed of the truck, we instead found buckets full of mushrooms. We got in the back and a middle aged guy introduced himself as Ted. Ted was from Joseph, Oregon - a little town in the northeastern mountains of the state - and he was out here hunting King Boletes. He had a few patches that he called “his” out here and he spoke to us of them using very vague language as if to ensure we wouldn't find them. I guess mushroom pickers are very hush-hush about their spots. We drove for some time in light conversation but at one point, Ted asked a very funny question as we drove near a spot where the base of Mt. Adams was briefly visible. His question? “Ya’ll ever see the lights out here?”
At the beginning of our senior year at Washington State University, I led a group of about eight people to the summit of Mt. Adams. It was syllabus week and we were looking for something fun to do, so a hodgepodge group of us including Amanda, myself, Amanda’s little brother Ray, Josh (who’s tent we borrowed in the Sierra), my random upstair’s neighbor and Amanda’s roommate (+ boyfriend) took the first weekend back our senior year and climbed the ‘ol flat-topped mountain. The southern spur route is very straightforward. It’s hardly a glacier climb and so it was a perfect weekend objective for eight very underprepared college kids. Plus, I'd done it about 4 times before and was familiar with the route. In any case, a warm late-August evening in 2009 saw a group of Wazzu students pitching tents at a popular flat spot called Lunch Counter around 9000 feet on the shoulder of Mt. Adams. And it was later that evening, while we were passing around a fifth of Fireball whiskey that we did, indeed, see the lights. As we looked down off the western side of the mountain all of us distinctly remember seeing what can only be described as a lazer style rave taking place almost exactly where the PCT runs next to the mountain, about 4000 feet below. I remember that none of us could really decide what was going on as the thin beam of lights along the entire color spectrum lit up the trees below the mountain.
So when Ted asked us, fourteen years later - “ya’ll seen the lights?” I immediately responded “Wait, yea - I have seen the lights!” “Yep,” he responded, “hollow earth dude.” “What?” Amanda and I responded practically in unison. At this point, Ted went into a long description, which he was careful to clarify that he did not personally believe in, of a fringe conspiracy theory that our planet is an alien space station and that Mt. Adams is one of the port entries for that space station. The lights come on when a ship needs to go into or out of the station. So… it all made sense. We had a good laugh about it anyway, but the fact remained - I have seen the fucking lights, so what are they?
We didn’t get to the bottom of it on the ride into Trout Lake though. Ted dropped us off at the Trout Lake Grocery store - a popular resupply depot for PCTrs that stop there. Again, I tried to give him a couple dollars but he just refused. Amanda and I picked up a few goodies at the store, deciding to leave our full resupply for the next morning. We talked to the lovely owners for a while and a regular that came in during our conversation offered to take us to our next destination - the Trout Lake Valley Inn - which we accepted.
We rolled down the small road at the south end of Trout Lake in a mid-90’s F-350 pick-up and were soon at the hotel. We got out and thanked the kind old guy for the ride before checking in. After we got to our room, we set about laying out all our wet gear. It smelled awful, but there were a whole lot of good places to clip things up and I took the copper spur to the nice little lawn outside to dry-out. It was soaked but thankfully the sun was out and about and was sure to give our new mobile home the heating it needed. Afterwards, Amanda and I got the warm-up we desperately needed, as well, in the hotel’s hot tub.
After everything was warmed up and fairly dried out, Amanda and I decided to head for the Trout Lake Hall where a local band was going to be performing that evening. We borrowed the hotel’s bikes and rode down to the hall. We were not disappointed to find a beautifully renovated, grange style building hosting a nice stage and bar. We spent all evening there listening to a band that, I think, was called Gizzard Shits or something like that. Good band, amazing food and great boos. Afterwards, we carefully rode back to the hotel and, with nothing left in us after 4 days of walking in the rain, quickly drifted into a dreamless sleep.