Sept 17th
Pear Lake(2493.7)-Glacier Creek(2525.4)
Today’s Mileage: 31.7mi

It rained on and off overnight. We were all relieved that it wasn’t raining when we packed up this morning and our tents were dry enough that we wouldn’t have to hang them out during the day. It did start to drizzle just as we were leaving. The clouds were looming and we had a mist on us that came and went all day. Despite the wetness, today was one of my favorite days in Washington. The scenery was unlike anything we’ve seen so far. Bookworm said he thought it looked like Scotland. The green hills with fog and clouds made me think of the medieval days and Knights of the Roundtable. I kept expecting to see Sean Connery and Richard Gere ride up on horses (love the movie, First Knight!). I took a ton of pictures!

The fog and clouds gave it such a mystical feel. The terrain was great with soft trail and gradual ups and downs. We even had some extended level sections, which rarely happens in Washington. The mist was better than rain and the air today was crisp and ideal for hiking. We had our rain gear on all day, even though the mist was light. We got soaked repeatedly walking through a lot of overgrowth. That was annoying.

I spent the day walking near Yankee and Bookworm. Colin went ahead because he is pushing to do a bit more miles than us. We still needed to make up miles because of our early camping yesterday. There is limited camping up here and we ended up pushing to a camp spot 31.7mi from where we started. Around 6:30pm, I had my headphones on and was pushing to get to camp. I heard someone yell and I had gone right past Colin who had found a not so great spot in the woods. He didn’t know about the site we were headed to and decided to join us. We were really happy with the decision to hike further today even though it was tiring. It puts us in a better position for the rest of this leg and making the bus to Stehekin in a couple days. In the late afternoon, we went over a pass and got stuck in a cloud for awhile.

We have officially entered Glacier Peak Wilderness, but the clouds were too low today to see Glacier Peak. Bummer. The last few hours of the day were in some great old growth forest.

We, like many PCTers, chose not to take a detour that would have paralleled over 40mi of trail due to a washout years ago. Tomorrow is the big log crossing on that washout. I’m NOT looking forward to the log crossing, but it will be nice to get it done tomorrow and out of the way.

It was a long, but wonderful day of hiking and I’m having trouble staying awake while I type again. It looks like the sky may be clearing for tomorrow. All our shoes are soaked and I’m hoping my rain paints dry a bit more by the morning. It is another cold night and I’m loving my warm, cozy sleeping bag!