Rattlesnakes and Bald Eagles

by Chris Townsend

  The guidebook suggested that the first few days out from the Columbia River were quite tough, as they involved a long ascent back up into the mountains, and also not very interesting. Lured by restaurants and cafes I didn’t leave Stevenson until late afternoon and it was well after dark when I reached the Panther Creek Campground after 15 miles of hard-on-the-feet road walking so I just rolled out my groundsheet, got in my sleeping bag and fell asleep. I felt very tired and over-stuffed with food. Although I didn’t realise it until the next day I had now walked 2,000 miles.

  Panther Creek was only some 800 feet above the Columbia River so I still had a long climb ahead to reach the mountains. I had a heavy pack too, loaded with ten days food and five paperback books. A waterless 17 miles with 4,000 feet of ascent in stifling humidity led from Panther Creek to an unappealing muddy puddle called Sheep Lake, where I camped anyway as I was tired and thirsty, treating the water with purifying tablets. There were some views of the huge glacier-clad Mount Adams but otherwise it was not a day to remember.

  At Sheep Lake there were mosquitoes and the sky was clouding over. Soon it was raining. At least, I thought, I’m back up in the mountains. The rain continued into the next morning and for the first time on the walk I adopted a backpacking technique from home – light the stove, make another hot drink, open my book and wait in the hope the rain will stop. In this case it didn’t quite, just turning to drizzle and a wet white mist by the time I thought I really had to get going. I realised I might have to walk in similar conditions quite often in the days to come as I knew the time for continuous sunny weather had passed and that the Washington Cascades had a wetter more variable climate than the mountains to the south anyway. In September, which was just three days away, the first snows of winter might fall and storms were likely.

  At a spot called Blue Lakes the drizzle turned back to real rain so I stopped for lunch in the shelter of a big tree. Jay passed by and told me he was heading for the old Cascade Crest Trail, which was built in the 1930s and which here took a lower route than the PCT (mostly the two coincide with the PCT replacing the older trail), his mind set on reaching Canada as quickly and easily as possible. When the rain eased I set off, sticking to the PCT, only to be caught in a real heavy downpour. All the hills were shrouded in cloud and I saw little. Walking in dense, wet, misty forests continued the next day all the way to a camp by the White Salmon River, which despite its name was just a dry gully where the trail crossed it. A noise of falling water led me to a gushing spring in dense undergrowth fifty yards downstream.

  I was just inside the Mount Adams Wilderness now and the next few days looked scenically promising so I was hoping the weather would clear up. And it did. I woke to a clear sky and fine weather that lasted until the evening. The timberline traverse below Mount Adams was excellent. Flowery meadows interspersed with groves of subalpine fir and mountain hemlock gave a soft background to the massive White Salmon Glacier and the steep, fractured icefalls of the Adams Glacier that poured down from the bulky, flat-topped mountain; the white ice flowing in great surges and split and cracked with crevasses. The second highest mountain in Washington 12,281 foot Mount Adams is massive, its spreading bulk making it impressive even though it doesn’t have the cone or dome-like summit of other strato-volcanoes. Far to the north I could see wreaths of dirty cumulus clouds around distant peaks but the sky above Mount Adams remained blue. Snowless Mount St. Helens, much closer now, was giving off wisps of steam. I wouldn’t see it often again as it lies well to the west of the PCT and I was now passing it by. Beyond St. Helens the white bulk of Mount Rainier could be seen. Both these mountains had disappeared into cloud by late afternoon but I didn’t mind as I’d enjoyed the traverse below Mount Adams and was delighted to be back at timberline. The walking had been slightly softer and gentler than the trail across Mount Hood, I think because it was just below rather than on the mountain. I passed many scenic camp sites with views of Mount Adams but feeling energetic I pushed on and descended back down into the forest before camping. Just before I did so a deep rich red-brown coloured pine marten with something in its mouth ran across the trail. This was my first sighting of one on the walk and I was very pleased to see it.

  From here on, bar a few days in logged areas, the PCT in Washington would be a delight, a magnificent long finale to the walk in the most sustained area of mountain grandeur and wilderness outside of the High Sierra. I was now in the most rugged and continuously mountainous part of the Cascades. I think the Washington section is the main reason for hiking the PCT from Mexico to Canada rather than the other way as it means finishing the walk on a spectacular high (there are good practical reasons as well but given the illogicality of long distance hiking anyway I’d always put aesthetics first). I suspect if I’d gone southwards I’d have found the deserts and lower hills of Southern California made for a low key finish (and this in fact was to happen three years later when I hiked the Continental Divide Trail from Canada to Mexico).

  From Mount Adams the PCT climbs into the Goat Rocks Wilderness where, unusually, it actually follows the crest of the hills. This was real mountain walking on rugged, rocky terrain and I relished it. Goat Rocks is an alpine area of jagged, narrow ridges, small glaciers and peaks (Gilbert Peak at 8,201 feet is the highest). This splintered terrain is actually the decaying remnants of an ancient volcano that once rose to over 12,000 feet and was already extinct some 2,000,000 years ago, since when erosion has worn it down to its current state. The name comes from the mountain goats that live on the rocks. I spent two days crossing this exciting and wonderful landscape split by a night spent high in the mountains. I didn’t see any goats though.

  The traverse of Goat Rocks began with a curving ascent round the Walupt Lake Basin in a mixed forest of dense mountain hemlock and open lodgepole pine plus many Alaska cedars with their distinctive wilted look. The views of the Goat Rocks from this ascent were good but they really opened up on the climb above timberline to 6,460 foot Cispus Pass from where I looked across the deep Klickitat River valley to the barren rock and talus wall of Gilbert Peak. After a descent into the Cispus River Basin I climbed back up 1000 feet through glacial run-off washes and dusty scree slopes interspersed with rich alpine flower meadows on the slopes of Old Snowy Mountain to the tiny rough stone Dana May Yelverton Shelter at 7040 feet. The shelter was surrounded by wind and frost stunted four to ten foot high hemlocks and whitebark pine. Leaving my gear in the shelter I climbed to a superb vantage point on the ridge just above it from where there were impressive views of Mounts Rainier, Hood and St. Helens plus the Goat Rocks peaks. Here I sat and watched a fine sunset over permanently frozen Goat Lake after which an almost full moon appeared in the sky. After all the weeks in the forest I felt a sense of euphoria at being back high in the mountains again. A cold wind eventually sent me back down to the shelter where I could see stars through holes in the roof. I noted in my journal that unless it was repaired soon the whole roof would collapse. I guess this never happened as the shelter is now a ruin. I enjoyed my night inside as the walls kept off the wind. I wouldn’t have liked it so much if it had rained though.

  The next day was one of two very different halves, starting with more superb mountain walking but finishing with getting lost in the forest and having to push hard to reach my next supply point at the White Pass Ski Area. I wasn’t actually running out of food so didn’t need to be there that day but having decided I could be I was determined enough, or perhaps just pig-headed enough, to keep going. The long, tiring day began with a pretty pink, red and orange dawn that set me up for a grand high-level walk along narrow, winding mountain paths surrounded by jagged rock peaks and grey, debris spattered glaciers. I crossed a 7080 foot saddle, the high point of the PCT in Washington, and then traversed the slopes of Old Snowy Mountain above the shining ice of the Packwood Glacier. Next the trail went round some pinnacles on a narrow ridge between Egg Butte and Elk Pass. A sign warned that there were no passing places for stock on this section of
the trail. I was glad I didn’t meet any other hikers, let alone horses, as the trail was very narrow and the slopes below steep and rocky. To the north Mount Rainier dominated the view. This was all splendid stuff and very enjoyable but the day was about to change.

  From Elk Pass a descent led through stunted three foot high trees into tall subalpine forest and the meadows of the McCall Basin, a flat hanging valley. Here I lost the trail. After a futile hour going round and round the basin trying to find where the trail exited from it I gave up and decided I’d have to bushwhack in as straight a line as possible to a point where I should find the trail again. That resulted in spending another hour stumbling through dense forest and clambering over fallen trees on compass bearings for a mile to Lutz Lake, where I finally stumbled over the trail. This tiring delay turned what should have been a relatively easy day, with plenty of time to reach White Pass before the post office shut, into an arduous slog. It was midday when I reached Lutz Lake and I still had 11 miles and a 2000 foot climb to go. I knew from previous places that the post office could shut at 4 p.m. and would certainly be shut at 5. I hammered up the climb, paused for a look down at beautiful pale blue Shoe Lake then continued on a pleasant traverse of the rough but scenic slopes of Hogback Ridge before racing down through the forest to reach White Pass at 4.45 p.m. feeling hot, exhausted and very thirsty only to discover that I needn’t have rushed at all. The Kracker Barrel Grocery Store was also the post office and the owner had a very relaxed and friendly attitude to PCT hikers. I could have collected my mail any time during the evening. Probably dehydrated from pushing on without bothering to stop to drink as well as very tired and overheated I felt faint in the very hot store so grabbed some cold cans of Coke and sat outside to drink them. In the register I discovered that Wayne had been here the day before and that Scott and Dave were still four days ahead. All three were planning on reaching Canada in eighteen days’ time. An unpleasant entry from a PCT hiker I’d never met attacked Scott, Dave, Larry and me, saying we couldn’t have gone through the High Sierra as it had been impossible to do so. I’d seen this comment from him in other registers but hadn’t responded. This time, fed up with the suggestion I was a liar, I wrote some choice words and the next day sent him a postcard asking why he’d been saying this. I never had a reply. I could only guess that as he hadn’t gone through the High Sierra he needed to think it had been impassable. The long day ended sleeping under the stars on the White Pass Campground beside dragonfly haunted Leech Lake.

  Noisy birds woke me at dawn. A whole flock of gray jays were in camp but it was a few raucous Stellar’s jays that were making all the noise. Beautiful to look at these birds have a very harsh and ugly call. There was a pair of hairy woodpeckers drumming in the trees too and an American robin bobbing over the ground. The sky was a leaden grey and soon it was raining steadily. Without ever consciously deciding to do so I had a rest day, my first since Ashland thirty days before. I had been feeling weary at the end of recent days and probably needed the rest. The grocery had a laundromat and a shower available to PCT hikers so I was able to do some necessary washing of my clothes and myself. I spent the day alternating between the store and the Continental Café just across the road in the ski lodge. Mike, the manager of the store, was a mountaineer, backpacker and skier and I had a long interesting chat with him about the PCT and the Cascades. Jay arrived at lunchtime – I’d thought he was ahead of me – soon followed by other hikers out for the Labor Day weekend. I sent a postcard to Scott and Dave at Stehekin, the last supply point before the end of the trail, in case I didn’t catch them up. Although Jay was the only other PCT hiker here I found that reading the register, which was full of entries from those who’d skipped sections and come up here weeks and months before, made me feel I was part of a community of PCT hikers heading for Canada for the first time since those long ago pre-High Sierra days. How many, I wondered, had already reached Canada.

  Mike offered the loft above the store to sleep in so as it was still raining I moved in there with three hikers heading for the Goat Rocks Wilderness. The rain and cloud meant I never saw the full moon that night, the last one of the walk. I would be back home for the next one. Slowly the walk was drawing to a close. I still had three weeks left though and some tough and spectacular terrain to cross.

  Before leaving White Pass I weighed my pack. With six days’ supplies it came to 63lbs, which the pack handled well. I’d grown used to it now and was quite happy with the design. The rain had stopped but the clouds were still low, as they remained all day so there were no views. After all the rain the trail for the first ten miles was incredibly muddy and slippery, made worse by all the horses that had been and were using it - six passed me as I plodded along. I also saw dozens of backpackers out on this last holiday weekend of the summer. The condition of the trail improved in the afternoon and the walking became more enjoyable though the mountains remained hidden. After twenty miles and 2,700 feet of ascent I camped at Twin Lakes on the edge of Mount Rainier National Park. The walk had taken just 71/2 hours. I hadn’t hiked this quickly for quite a while. I’d needed that day off. Of course the lack of views and the damp, chilly air had also kept me moving briskly but I suspect I’d have stopped sooner if I hadn’t rested at White Pass. In camp I noticed that the stitching on my shoes was coming apart again. Would they last another three weeks? (They did, just). I was also having problems with condensation in my single-skin tent due to the very humid weather and had to be very careful not to brush against the damp walls.

  The PCT only just touches the eastern edge of Mount Rainier National Park but the country it passes through outside the park is just as majestic and gives splendid views of Mount Rainier. This country is now protected in the William O. Douglas and Norse Peak Wilderness Areas, though these weren’t designated until two years after my walk. The centrepiece of the whole area is Mount Rainier, the highest peak in the Cascades at 14,411 feet, which towers above the forest, dominating the view for many, many miles. Rainier is also the most heavily glaciated mountain in the 48 lower states with 26 named glaciers covering around 36 square miles. It’s still an active volcano, last erupting in the late nineteenth century. The first Europeans to see the mountain were the members of the British naval expedition led by Captain George Vancouver that explored the coast here in 1792. Rainier was named by Vancouver (he named many places in the area) after a British admiral who, as so often in such cases, never even saw the mountain that bore his name (Mount Everest is the most famous example of this Imperial naming). The mountain already had a local name of course, Tacoma. The meaning of this is unclear but the favourites are ‘mother of waters’ or ‘snow-covered mountain’, which both make sense. For many years the mountain was known by both names but in 1890 Rainier was made the official one. There is an ongoing campaign to revert to the local name, which would seem far more appropriate than that of a naval officer from a far off country. The national park was created in 1899, the fifth such park in the USA.

  Rainier is not an easy mountain to climb due to the glaciers and the steepness. The first recorded ascent was in 1870 by Hazard Stevens (wonderful name for a mountaineer!) and Phillmon Van Trump. John Muir climbed it in 1888 and described his ascent dramatically in his book Steep Trails. Although impressed he doesn’t sound absolutely certain of the joys of the ascent writing: ‘The view we enjoyed from the summit could hardly be surpassed in sublimity and grandeur; but one feels far from home so high in the sky, so much so that one is inclined to guess that, apart from the acquisition of knowledge and the exhilaration of climbing, more pleasure is to be found at the foot of the mountains than on their tops. Doubly happy, however, is the man to whom lofty mountain tops are within reach, for the lights that shine there illumine all that lies below.’ Camp Muir, a refuge on the mountain used as a base camp for ascents, was built in 1921 in memory of John Muir.

  I wasn’t planning on climbing Mount Rainier, an alpine expedition that would have meant renting climbing equipment and booking with
a guide. I didn’t have the time anyway. I was happy merely to gaze on the great mountain as I walked past it in the woods and meadows, finding pleasure, as Muir suggested, at the foot of the mountain. The morning at Twin Lakes was cold enough for me to wear my warm hat for the first time in months, a reminder that the seasons were changing.

  This was the only time I’d been in a popular area on a holiday weekend and I was amazed at the number of people about, especially near Chinook Pass, where the trail crossed an access road into the park that was lined with parked cars. Either side of this busy highway the trails were packed with day hikers all enjoying the dramatic and beautiful scenery. Many of them asked me what I was doing – I didn’t look like a day hiker or a weekend backpacker! The strangest conversation was with a woman who on hearing my accent said she could tell English wasn’t my first language and she’d try and guess where I was from. After a pause she triumphantly came up with an answer. Belgium! I could only guess she’d run through accents she knew – French, German, Italian, Spanish maybe – and come up with one she didn’t know and assumed that must be mine. She was very surprised when I told her I was English. Another woman decided I must be hungry – I was very skinny – and insisted I take some fresh plums, tomato, cucumber and a sandwich. This was more than I needed or could eat at the time but she wouldn’t accept a refusal. Talking to all the people did take time but their friendliness and genuine interest was heartening.