10/20/2023
Section: Milepost 2466.9 to 2466.9
Total Trail Miles: 2464.8 Miles
Distance: 0 Miles
Moving Time: 0:00 Hrs
Elevation Gain: 0 Ft
Decisions, decisions, decisions. We woke up the next morning in Leavenworth and the first thing I did was look at my phone. I had taken a peek the night before but was hoping for some better news this morning. We have two sections left but one of them is considered, by some, to be one of the more gnarly sections of the PCT - the Glacier Peak Wilderness. 127 miles through one of the more desolate areas of the Pacific Crest Trail, 5-7 days at our current mileage average and all of those days would start and end in the dark. Beyond that is the Pasayten Wilderness - 70 miles from Washington Pass to the Canadian Ski Resort of Manning Park and the Northern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. We are 8-10 days from finishing. The only problem is what is coming in 2-3 days.
According to NOAA, the first major snowstorm of the year is set to hit the Cascades on Wednesday night (2 days from now) and drop 6-16 inches of snow below 5000 feet and 1-2 feet above. “Damn,” Amanda sighed as I finished reading the NOAA report, “That’s not good.” “No it is not,” I agreed. We talked a bit about it but, in reality, we both knew going out into the Glacier Peak Wilderness with potentially 2 feet of snow on the way would be ridiculous. “We might be able to get to Washington Pass,” I mused, “but I'm worried we might get cut off from the border.” “Yea,” Amanda replied, “and, honestly, i’d rather skip this section and do it next year if it allows us to finish off at Manning Park.” “Agreed,” I said, “I want to touch that monument!”
The other aspect that worried us was the White Mountain traverse. Glacier Peak is not unknown to us. Four years ago we climbed Glacier Peak on a long weekend in July and we distinctly remember hiking a short section of the PCT on our way to it. What we remembered distinctly was a long, exposed traverse below White Mountain that dropped over a thousand feet into the Sauk River valley. No trees and a trail that was barely able to crimp itself to the side of the mountain. We could prepare ourselves better than we were prepared for the Knife Edge, but we knew it would be slow and exhausting, and that was just the one spot we knew would get ugly in the snow, not the many others to the north and south.
So, it was with a heavy heart that we made the decision to take the day to rest in Leavenworth and start back north at Washington Pass the next day, leaving the Glacier Peak Wilderness for 2024. It was a tough decision to not complete the PCT in a year but with 2 sick days and a number of other obligations, we had run out of time. The good news was that this section was in our backyard and would be easy to make-up the next year. We decided to call our climb of Glacier Peak a temporary placeholder for now.
Amanda made some reservations for us and her parents in Winthrop that night and we walked down to ACB coffee, which is our favorite coffee shop in Leavenworth, before joining her parents at Sandy’s Waffle House for some breakfast. We let them know the plan and they agreed to take us up to Winthrop. Afterwards, we window shopped in Leavenworth. That town is beautiful in the Fall. Some signs of last weekend’s Oktoberfest still persisted and I took one opportunity at lunch to get a beer that celebrated the season.
After lunch we loaded up the great, lumbering F350 and Ray drove us up to Winthrop. We stopped at Hank’s Harvest Foods in Twisp, on our way, and resupplied, selecting some airplane shots for our “SHoe-ee” at the terminus. In Winthrop, we checked into the hotel on the east side of town, the Winthrop Inn, before heading into town for a burger and beer at the Old Schoolhouse Brewery. We enjoyed some great beer and our last hot meal before our final 3-day stretch to the terminus, and then made our way back to the hotel. Once back, we organized our things, making sure everything looked good so we could get a quick start in the morning and, with that, went to sleep on the final american mattress of the PCT!
