Sobo PCT 2021 Series (part 7): White Pass to zeros at Trout Lake/Hood River/White Salmon

Here is the 7th installation of my PCT trail journal (about 2 weeks off the present timeline as a safety precaution). Follow my thruhike in section-by-section blog posts (for the most part without pics due to technical difficulties), or in daily photo and text posts on instagram or facebook (@JustAGirlAndABackpack.Blog). Please attribute all spelling/grammar errors to autocorrect and exhaustion at the end of the day.

Statistics for my journey so far are as follows. Trail stats: day 39; 470.6mi hiked; 2.2mi skipped; 49.1 extraneous miles; record day = 23.5mi; avg 12.1 mi/day (w/ zeros); avg 14.7 mi/day (w/o 7 zeros); 6 nights night hiking. Town stats: 7 zero days; 13 luxurious town nights; 6 resupplies; 13 showers (with soap!); 8 loads of laundry. Nature connection stats: 1 snake; 2 bears; 14 species of wild plants munched on; 7 species of wild plants for butt wiping; 1 good sunrise; 8 good sunsets; 8 great nights of stars; 11 instances when I felt exceptionally connected to nature; 2 accidental splooshes at river crossings; 4 dangerous river crossings; 8 dives into lakes/rivers; 5 rain storms; 2 lightning/thunder storm; 2 foggy days; 4 days of smelling smoke; 12 days of smoke obscuring views. Human connection stats: 10 hiking buddies; 3 hitch hikes; 30 trail angels; 2 douchebags; 7 great talks with passing nobos; 2 “propositions”; 4 people that recognized me from Guthooks comments. Mental state stats: 4 books read; 2 days of existential dread; times I felt scared = 6; times I wanted a hiking partner = 7; 3 days of off trail depression; 3 nights of little sleep. Physical state stats: weight lost = 0lbs; 1 rash; 6 small cuts; 4 bruises; 3 blisters; 6 calluses; infinite insect love nips; sore calves; neither knee is happy; 1 hangover; I had sore forearms; I had shin splints; my right shoulder was a disaster. Gear stats: 1 pair of shoes mangled; 2 other gear items destroyed; 11 gear items bought; 16 gear repairs; 46 gear modifications; 1 gear item lost; approx 4.8lbs of gear sent home or cut.

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Sunday August 8; Zero in Trout Lake at Mile 423.7 (0 miles, day 39). I made the mistake of letting the town “vortex” get ahold of me. I stayed another day in Trout Lake to charge my electronics, chat with friends new and old, eat fresh food, drink beer, etc. This place is cool though. I went to breakfast with Allan and Connie, eating a giant huckleberry pancake and eggs and bacon. It’s a Sunday, so the Presbyterian Church where they allow hikers to camp and use their toilets and kitchen was in session, and after the sermon the 80+ year old crowd gathered for cookies and coffee. They invited me in, and were so curious about why I was hiking, it was cute. I directed various new hiker arrivals towards the amenities the town offered all morning. Razor didn’t drag himself out of bed until after 2pm (can’t tell if he was sick from the stomach flu or from alcohol, because he didn’t drink that much), and he waited for me to finish calling my friends and family before we grabbed shitty burgers from the cafe/diner at the gas station. We checked out the general store again, as well as the hiker area with the hiker boxes and shuttle info. I learned from a plant book that wild chicory can help with upset stomachs, so he and I went and ate a couple of blossoms from some roadside chicory (nasty, would not recommend). Alan, Connie and Stilts were playing cards when we got back, so we grabbed some beers and tried to join in the conversations with everybody. The wind and cold picked up while I was chatting with Gourmet back at the picnic tables, so we moved inside with everyone else to chat and enjoy the evening. Forest made too much pasta, and made eye contact with me while saying he couldn’t eat it all, and i of course volunteered as tribute to eat the other half of his massive amount of pasta with red sauce. It was a weird feeling tonight to be surrounded by so many people, but to feel as though I was an outsider, especially in contrast to yesterday when I had felt so involved in everything. Razor and i spent a lot of time taking about things, mostly traumatic experiences, before he and everyone else filed out to go to bed. David and I talked on the phone for awhile for the second time today, him sappy drunk off his ass from celebrating his birthday all day, and me missing him.

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Saturday August 7; Zero in Trout Lake at Mile 423.7 (0 miles, day 38). {Uhg I’m so mad at myself that i didn’t write an entry for 3 days!} Mom, Kaitlyn and i spent the morning eating and packing up the Airbnb. We then met up with my aunt and uncle to go window shopping in downtown Hood River. The two sports/gear shops did not have the sun gloves I wanted (one had full length gloves that went up to the shoulders but that’s not what I wanted lol). It was brutally hot, making us all a little grumpy, but when we crossed back over the Columbia the air cooled a little as we approached Trout Lake. We stopped by the uninspiring lake that is the name sake of town, then got yummy tacos and Jarritos at the taco truck that is open 3 days a week. Mom and Kaitlyn got to get a glimpse of my current lifestyle when they dropped me off at the presbyterian church where I planned to set up my tent. They saw the 4 older dudes who were already there, the run down yard, and got to meet a newly awoken Razor; none of which made them feel any better about leaving me in the middle of nowhere to hike another 2200 miles. Later in the day i literally almost tripped over Alan and Connie at the general store. We were all so shocked and happy to see each other and spent awhile catching up over beers at the picnic shelter. Polenta Pants (a cook for his day job) made an absurd amount of buttery, balsamicy pasta and shared it with everyone, making us all have to evacuate our bowels from the richness. The yard had filled up with a lot of people (almost all nobos) by the end of the day, some having fine to bed early, but most of them drinking and making friends. Razor went to bed around 8pm, not feeling well, sand the rest of our group (having grown to 5 with the addition of Stilts and Polenta Pants) went to an event in town with an open bar, live banjo music, and at least a hundred people enjoying themselves (this is a town of 600 people, so this was quite lively). Polenta and i stayed up even later, watching shooting stars streak across the sky and talking about my experiences as a woman on trail.

• 

• 

• 

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Friday August 6; Zero in White Salmon at Mile 423.7 (0 miles, day 37). {Another day done a few days later because I’ve been procrastinating} Mom, Kaitlyn and i spent the entire morning and afternoon working studiously on various things on our computers, as well as catching up and snacking between my mom’s business calls. A friend of my mom’s joined us when we were done, and we again went across the river, this time to go down to the water to watch the kite surfers. Once evening rolled around we got drinks (margaritas) and food at a distillery with the rest of the fam. Then we went to the Watering Hole in Binjen to dance to the blues with a bunch of retirement age and older folks, drinking more tequila and eating more of course. We wrapped up the night at our Airbnb since our common space was so big and we had cookies to bake. Kaitlyn and i tried and failed to teach the fam how to play Fishbowl, a charades game that’s way more fun and intense than charades.

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Thursday August 5; Zero in White Salmon at Mile 423.7 + 2 day hike miles (2 miles, day 36). {I’m so annoyed because the journal entry for this day somehow got deleted with no saved copy, so i have to try to remember what happened} I was the first up and started the coffee maker before Uncle Jim made eggs and Aunt Gloria made bacon for everybody, with a side of fruit and croissants. We all went on a short hike on national forest land (we had gotten we kicked out of state land due to recreation bans related to fire danger) in an area that looked like it was volcanic rock barely covered in a thin layer of grass. Mom and Kaitlyn met us at Everybody’s Brewery in Hood River, where I got my first burger with peanut butter on it (a weird new trend in the west coast apparently). We went to our Airbnb so mom and Kaitlyn could nap after their trying morning traveling and so i could use my sister’s laptop. Then we went to The Ruins for live music, dancing and wine with the whole fam, followed by hanging out at their condo until mom fell asleep, and then heading back to pass out at the Airbnb.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Wednesday August 4; Mile 403.1 to Mile 423.7 + drive into Hood River/Mosier (20.6 miles, day 35). {This is the first time I have gone to sleep without writing a journal entry, very disappointed with myself. I’m catching up before I write the entry for the 5th} As I was packing up my bag this morning, I discovered that I had an ABSURD amount of food left; I’m talking a whole breakfast, two lunches, one dinner, and more snacks and sweets than I know what to do with. What this means is, I am going to have to get better at judging how much food I’ll need for each section, because I simply cannot be carrying extra weight. I saw a doe and her young fawn pretty early in the day, flapping their ears at me and generally being adorable. There were a lot of rivers to cross today. All of the big ones were very silty (I’ve seen the descriptive term “Glacial Flour” thrown around in Guthooks), milky white in color, and fairly roaring. I had to do some rock hopping, and at one crossing I had to use several different log jams to work my way across, hoping to not fall in and die. I spent the whole day practicing singing the song Devil’s Backbone by the Civil Wars, trying to get all the words memorized, as well as the notes and tune. I was only partially successful, as I got all of the words down (except for one phrase which I can’t actually understand in the song itself) and one stanza which is in a different key from the rest of the song, and for some reason I can quite get the notes right without having the singer singing along with me. (I can’t remember if I had written about this in any of my other posts, but the last several days I have also been working on memorizing two other songs: Shooting Star, which is an old camp song from Walden West that I loved when I was growing up, and Favorite Things from Sound of Music). The lava flows (fields of colorful pumice boulders) were prevalent as I skirted Mt. Adams to the West, finally able to see its snowy sides since the smoke had cleared a little bit. When I had cell service in mid afternoon, I called my Aunt Gloria to see if she’d be able to pick me up at the Trout Lake access road (forest service road 23) in an hour and a half, and she said she’d be there with her sister. My Uncle Jim quickly called back to confirm the google map pin I had sent her for the location. The day was so hot and muggy, making me feeling generally unmotivated and gross. I stopped several times, called David and took a nap, and nothing really seemed to help, but once I had a deadline set to meet my aunt, I flew down the last 3.5mi of trail, arriving 30 minutes before the meeting time, and another 20 minutes before my uncle and second cousin once removed (Louis) actually arrived. We drove down to the condo they were all staying in in Hood River, OR, crossing the massive Columbus River which marks the state line between WA and OR. They were the best trail angels, with cold water and La Croixs waiting in a cooler for me, stopping by the grocery store to pick up food to make a delicious meal, showing me the showers and the towels and the laundry, and then proceeding to feed me 3 helpings of an amazing shrimp stirfry and fresh salad, over several glasses of wine and Louis’ homemade mead. They all (Jim, Gloria, Louis, Gloria’s sister Linda and Linda’s husband Scott) watched on in a mixture of amusement and horror as I then went back for several slices of Louis’ homemade rhubarb and blueberry bread with tart homemade golden raspberry jam (which aggravated my already stinging tastebuds from all of the tart fruits high in citric acid that I’d been eating in the wilds for so many days). I curled up on the comfy couch for the night, feeling exceptionally appreciative towards all of them.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Tuesday August 3; Mile 379.6 to Mile 403.1 (23.5 miles, day 34). I took my sweet time getting ready, as i always do but also because I had told Razor I’d sleep in a bit so he could catch up (he never did, but I think we’ll overlap again at Trout Lake since I plan to take a couple of zeros there with my mom, sister, aunt and uncle). There were some outstanding waterfalls and some of the most impressive wildflowers yet on the way up to Cispus Pass, which was an interesting contrast to the other side of the pass, which was a dry, barren, rocky stretch of trail. I spent the majority of the day on Yakima tribal lands. There were a billion other people also hiking, mostly north, and many of them were noboers. I tried something new today to up my mileage: i took 4 or so shorter breaks as opposed to 1 several hour break, and i think it was effective since I did 23.5mi and still got into camp around 9:30pm, which has been the norm lately anyway. There were some mosquitoes all day, but i seemed to get lucky, since mostly it was just flies buzzing me when I stopped to rest. At my final break, i paused at a campsite without bugs to rest my feet. Kiltsman and his pup Ambassador/Anubis joined me and we had a good long talk. He’s a nobo, out for his triple crown this year, and has done 4 other long thruhikes. He’s got a system down: 400mi of 8mi days; then he ups his mileage (but only to 17mi/day); after the first 400mi you don’t really have to worry about getting hurt bc your body is used to the hiking. The Lava Spring was my unofficial goal, if I could make it that far, and i was very proud when I was able to do it. TMI, but the butt chafe is real; not sure why, my skin doesn’t agree with the new underwear, general sweaty butt chafing, hiking with wet undergarments after jumping in lake, not wiping well enough (hopefully not), allergy to something i wiped with, etc. With the constellation Cassiopeia looking down on me and the burble of the Lava Spring lulling me, im hoping to drift to sleep quickly to rest my sore muscles from my longest day on trail, yet.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Monday August 2; Mile 363 to Mile 379.6 + .2 for water + .4 to summit Old Snowy + .3 Knife’s Edge alternate (17.5 miles, day 33). I woke up to the smell of smoke an to smoky grey skies. I was on the road faster than normal, which can be attributed to my on the go breakfast. Walk It Off stopped by to chat as he headed south past my campsite, telling me all about how he has diarrhea haha. I was out of water so I decided to take an alternate route to Shoe Lake which people had praised on Guthooks (adding .2mi). At 9:45am the breezy lake was too chilly to do more than stand in, but I did get some water and use the best cathole ive dug yet on this trip, 6in deep and 6in wide, in this perfect sand. At almost mile 8, my cramps had gotten really bad again and I flopped down at Lutz Lake (really a scummy pond) to try to ralley. Razor almost walked by without noticing me, so engrossed was he in his music, but I called him over and we hung out for a bit and shared food. We were both low on water when we finally got to the first snow melt streams we had seen in a while. He stopped to camp very early, and i continued on, taking a million pictures. Then began the real adventure of the day: Knifes Edge. Aptly described to me by passerby as “super sketchy” and “absolutely fucked”, it held true to it’s name by being several miles of loose rock with vertiginous drops on either side. As one guy put it, the views “looked down on a planet embroiled in calamity” (i told him he should write a book, but his response was he’s too emotional, it’s all already been written, and he’s doing the PCT instead; then he howled and I howled back and we went on our merry ways), this in reference to the smoke making the views even more interesting. Unfortunately the smoke obscured both Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams almost entirely. Thankfully the closer views of the snow fields, purple and pink lava rock and pristine glacial tarns full of water as impossibly blue as windshield wiper fluid were visible. I took the alternate route in this section, adding .3mi, so that i could remain on the “Knife’s Edge” for a bit longer. This led me to accidentally follow a use trail that brought me all the way to the summit of Old Snowy, at approx 7800 ft, adding another .4mi. As i came down the other side of the mountain, the sun started inching towards the horizon, lighting up the clouds in amazing ways. All of the campsites for the next several miles had a bunch of tents, but I’m not sure why since it’s Monday. Nodded off several times while writing.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

PCT SOBO 2021 series: Sunday August 1; Mile 357.7 to 363 + .4 from Kracker Barrel (5.7 miles, day 32). {I’ve been on this adventure for a whole month now!} Eric the raven woke me up way too early this morning by cawing loudly and Irving around my tent. My poor, hungover self dragged my dead body and aching head out to pee before flopping back into the too warm, very damp confines of my tent. I ate something and chugged water then did my best to ignore the raven and his girlfriend while I slept for a couple more hours to try to recover some more of my dignity. Razor shook my tent soon after I woke up naturally around 9, and we grabbed an espresso drink and some muffins at the shop. I happily bumped into B’Shert (she was recently post-vomit from motion sickness from the drive up from Packwood) who was starting her day hiking. Hikers came and went all day, and we got to meet lots of cool folk while eating waayyy too much greasy gas station food and another pizza. Toad was an awesome gal who shared my interest in flora and fauna, and we chatted for hours about all the plants and animals we saw. We also flipped through some field guides that were at the shop (I of course spent quite some time reading an entire book on edible and poisonous berries of the Pacific Northwest). While I charged my electronics, I talked with an assortment of characters including Meltdown, Ethan, a bearded nobo who I showed how to use floss to sew up gear, an older guy who thanked me “for the smiles”, and of course Razor, Toad, Rick, Tomás, all interspersed with several FaceTimes with David. Razor left for the hills in the late afternoon. I ended up packing and getting ready to go, only to be waylaid by a very talkative older woman who was planning on doing some day hiking in the area and wanted to know about the smoke and the bugs and the trail and the people and (you get the picture). When I finally pulled away, the shop had closed–WITH MY PHONE INSIDE OF IT. Thankfully the owner still had to take out the trash and she let me in to grab the phone (sounding only a little put out). Canoe and Bowie gave me a cold tall boy on my way back to the trail head which I carried all the way 2100ft up in elevation and almost 6 miles to my campsite and drank over dinner. On the way, about 2mi in, I found Razor in camp, listening to a book or podcast or something. The stars were lovely, as was the smokey bright orange sunset, although the temperature dropped considerably since all of the clouds had finally dissipated and weren’t trapping heat.

• 

• 

• 

• 

•