Tag: Recreation

WA PCT completion: delayed.

In the days leading up to hitting the trail on August 28th, I kept an eye on the wildfire reports and kept thinking how lucky we were that this years fire season hadn’t yet affected the Pacific Crest Trail in WA. We didn’t know that lightning had ignited the Wildcat Fire on August 25th. On August 30th (Day 2), the fire took off. We awoke on Day 5 and smoke had drifted in overnight and filled the area. We kept hiking North for 1-1/2 days to White Pass and bailed off the trail.

The Back Story

The 512 miles and 110,000′ of elevation gain of the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington are divided into 5 sections:

SecStartEndMilesElev. gain
HColumbia RiverWhite Pass14828,000
IWhite PassSnoqualmie Pass9917,771
JSnoqualmie PassStevens Pass7516,000
KStevens PassRainy Pass12326,351
LRainy PassCanadian border6015,300

For years I’d been hiking along the PCT, mostly on Section I. The annual backcountry ski Patrol Race I’ve raced in (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025) is the northernmost 20 miles of Section I. My gradual expansion along the PCT accelerated in June 2023 when Maud and I backpacked Section J. We loved it. The strenuous evelation gain yielded stunning views. The distance and remoteness were challenging, but it also meant our trail companions were similarly fit and inclined to expend serious effort on their fun. It whetted our appetites.

In mid-August 2023 we hiked Section K. The adjectives and superlatives others use to describe it all fit: wild, rugged, stunning, soaring peaks, magnificent, strenuous, grueling, intense, world-class. It consistently ranks atop the favorite sections of every PCT hiker we surveyed. Section K and Goat Rocks are so good one hiker said, “Instead of hiking the entire PCT, I should have just hiked WA three times.”

In July ’24 we hiked section L. Rather than doing a 120-mile out-and-back trip, we left from Canyon Creek Trailhead and intersected with the PCT on the way North. Then we returned exclusively on the PCT. In May of this year, after plans to hike some of the PCT near Bend Oregon were cancelled due to 4′ of snow still on the trail, we instead hiked the first 25 miles of Section H. That left us with 172 miles of the PCT in WA left to complete.

Section H Trip Journal

Composed by Maud, edited by Matt.

Aug 28, Day 0. Drove with Bev to Pyramid Pass and dropped off the Tesla. Drove the Little Naches Road down to WA-410 and on thru Yakima where we visited Jean, Keith’s mom. Cacti and succulents. Grapes. Bev dropped us off at the Trout Creek trailhead. Lots of PCT thru hikers camping at Trout Creek. A trail angel left “trail magic” (apples, fresh fruit) along the trail.

Trout Creek bridge

Aug 29, Day 1: 19 miles. 6AM start, first light, 59ºF. Green trail. Oaks. Views of Mt Hood. Humid. Hot. Last of the huckleberries (at low altitude) and thimbleberries. Turkey vulture. No slugs. No mosquitoes. Heavy packs (10 days food). Sore shoulders. Napped midday in hammocks. Only 2 kissing bridges. 10 miles between water sources. View of Adams. Low snow level on South side. Camp site near lava rocks. Piped water from a spring 1-2 miles before Crest Camp trailhead. Met Zigzag (trail name). She started as a thru hiker but fell and hurt her head in the Sierra’s. Got helicoptered out. Has a zigzag scar. Her questions: “What’s your favorite trail food? What’s your biggest trail food mistake? Mine is rehydrated humus. I’m so over ramen.”

Southern WA, featuring Mt Hood
Southern WA, featuring Mt Hood

Aug 30, Day 2: 16 miles. 7:30 start. Loads of big black huckleberries. Met Baby Yoda at Crest Camp trailhead. Chatted with her about daily mileage for thru hikers. Views of Hood, Adams, Saint Helens. Light haze / clouded over. Not as warm. Several lakes. Swam in one. Indian Heaven wilderness. Had to camel up with water at last lake. 10 miles until next water. Hiked 3 more miles until 4:30. Saw a pack Llama on trail. Camped along trail just South of Sawtooth Mountain.

A pack Llama on the PCT

Aug 31, Day 3: 18 miles. Left Indian Heaven wilderness. One sneak peek of Adams. Forest hiking. Some very impressive beautiful trees. Mushrooms. Boletes, Lions mane, few other edibles. Hawk perched on a dead tree (speckled). Deer at camp site. Grey jays. Meadows. Crossed road to Trout Lake, a nearby resupply village where trail angels provide enhanced hiker services. Ditched garbage. Ran out of water in hot climb. Camped near a creek with a bunch of thru hikers.

Hericium coralloides (Coral tooth) mushroom

Sep 1, Day 4 (Labor Day). 20 miles. 6:40 start. Nearly the last to leave camp. Climbed to 6,000 ft through burn site. Views of Adams. Met Stealth from Houston and two ladies at a creek. Chatted. Next stop was a creek with a stunning view of the Adams glaciers. Lots of hikers loitering. Spent most of the day skirting the mountain. Beautiful views. Reminiscent of the Wonderland trail around Rainier, but a bit further from the mountain. Pressed on to the next water source at Lava Springs. Lots of big black huckleberries. Crossed several glacial rivers (milky). Matt saw a black bear.

Adams Glacier on Mt Adams, from the Pacific Crest Trail

Sep 2, Day 5: 19 miles. 7:00 start. Very hot day. Left Adams wilderness and entered Goat Rocks wilderness. Some views of Adams and Rainier. More mushrooms and berries. Ended at beautiful Sheep Lake. Swam. Laundry.  Nice sunset. Garter snake swimming in the lake. Dragonflies. Excellent dinner, MH Chicken Fajita Bowl and Stowaway Gourmet Lamb Bourguinon. Both very hungry after previous nights mild stomach upsets. Heard that fire has closed Section I from White Pass to Chinook Pass. Will arrive tomorrow. How do we get back to our car?

Sunset on Sheep Lake in the Cascades at 5,700′

Sep 3, Day 6: 18 miles. 6:30 start. Slept in separate hammocks all night for first time. Matt in 2-person with underquilt but no sleeping bag. Maud with Frogg Toggs and sleeping bag. Didn’t sleep great but it was a good combo. Awoke to very distinct smoke smell. Quickly entered the Goat Rocks. Beautiful meadowy valley with waterfalls. Smoke visible everywhere in the distance. Heavy smoky smell. We fabricated masks from socks and string. Glad I had a clean pair. The crest trail was spectacular. There was still a snowfield (former Packwood Glacier) leading up to the fork between Old Snowy and the PCT. Views of the McCall glacier. Very hot. Scree, loose slippery rocks.

Goat Rocks in the foreground, the pyrocumulous cloud of the 2025 Wildcat Fire in the distance

Talked to “long legs Australia.” She enjoyed CA desert the most. On her 5th pair of Hoka shoes, hikes about 30 miles per day. “Oregon was flat and relatively boring.” Got some cell phone signal. The Wildcat Fire doubled overnight. Our car is still safe. Saw a baby marmot. Left Goat Rocks and back into forest hiking. Very tired. Camped at Hidden Spring. Dinner in the meadow. Mountain House Kung Pao Chicken (3.75) and Stowaway Gourmet Thai Curry with Shrimp (4.5). We were very hungry. Smoke not so bad at camp site.

Sep 4, Day 7. 8 miles. Hiked to White Pass. In the parking lot, a guy offered us a ride in 3 hours, after hiking with his dog. Started hitchhiking East on US-12. Got picked up soon by Bonney and Albert in their 1-ton Chevy truck with 5th wheel trailer. On their way to float the Yakima River. Chatted about hunting and New Zealand. She works for WA OSHA and he has his own earthworks company. They gave us each a Corona. Got dropped off at intersection with WA-410.

After a half hour, a young lad stopped and offered us a ride after his shift ended at 2:30 (in 2 hours) if we hadn’t been picked up yet. Got picked up 5 minutes later by a 65 year old Mexican and his 22 year old daughter Sylvia. On their way to Tacoma to visit his son. 1980s panel van. Loud rap music. When Sylvia opened the back door, junk rained out. TV screen and stuff got moved to make room for us. Asked him how old his son was. He said “which one”? He has 8 sons and 5 daughters. One daughter died a month ago from an overdose.

Hit a squirrel and almost immediately the van started making noises. He said he had just bought the van. Engine overheating. Water boiling and spraying. He filled with more water and said he was going to turn around so he left us there. Awkward spot for hitchhiking. Walked half a mile further when a volunteer fire fighter picked us up and took us to Whistlin Jack’s Outpost. He was a retired DOE sniper at Hanford.

We didn’t even get up our thumbs up at Whistlin Jack’s before getting offered a ride. Don, a 77 year old retiree was looking for entertainment. Used to write code for airplane part manufacturing, then network maintenance. Opinionated. Wife has sled dogs. Sings in Yakima light opera. Couldn’t pronounce French. He gave a ride to a French hiker and took him home so wife could learn to pronounce the words. Used to do trail maintenance for forest service with his horses. Son lives next door, also has dogs (dog trainer). Quote of the day: “I knew I was smarter than you the moment I saw you. You’re walking down a highway in 92º degrees and smoke. I’m driving a truck”.

Ski report: Mt. Rainier, camp Muir

Because I’ve been asked enough times about our June 7th ski trip and have it already composed:

There’s [barely] continuous snow from the Paradise parking lot to camp Muir, but one needs to be careful to stay to climber’s right of the main route, else you’ll be booting a half mile. We left the Paradise parking lot (~5,400′) around 6:30AM on slightly firm snow and arrived at Muir (10,200′) around 11AM.

The top 500′ of snow immediately below Muir was still firm and moderately sun cupped. It’s skiable, but it’s not fun and don’t expect to look pretty doing it. Once we got below the sun cups, the snow was mashed potatoes the rest of the way down. Starting at 6:30 was too late, we should have planned to arrive at Muir by 10AM.

Lectric XP brake upgrade

I have a Lectric XP 2.0 e-bike I purchased in 2022. I ordered it with the cargo package (front and rear racks & baskets), intending to use it to reduce car trips for local errands and grocery shopping. Without any planning I can easily carry home two grocery bags on it. With a couple bungee cords, I can carry home a fair bit more.

The rather basic single-piston brakes with 160mm rotors that came with it are good enough to stop the bike and I on most terrain. However, I live in Seattle and we have good sized hills out here. When riding down a hill with a load of groceries, a fair degree of planning is required to bring the bike to a stop on time. It seems Lectric was made aware of this deficiency because the XP 3.0 has upgraded the brakes to 180mm rotors and hydraulic brakes.

Today I upgraded my XP 2.0 with a TEKTRO 203mm rotor on the front and I replaced the Zoom single-piston calipers with XTECH HB-100 hydraulic dual-piston calipers. The improvement in stopping power was immediately noticeable and I’m looking forward to testing my next grocery run.

Goat Rocks Wilderness

At 5AM on Friday morning, we set out for the Snowgrass Hikers Trailhead. All proceeded according to plan until 26 miles off the paved road, a sharp rock tore a 1.5″ gash through one of my tires. I used my tire repair kit to insert 5 plugs, greatly slowing down the air leak. That was sufficient to hold air for about 10 miles, so we turned around and headed back towards civilization.

Upon hitting blacktop, we also got cell phone coverage. I called Tesla service and they would flatbed my car back to Fife, WA and replace the tire. Expecting that to take about 5 hours, I declined to explore my options. The two nearby rural tire shops had nothing in the correct size, so we headed towards I-5 and started calling every shop between us and Chehalis.

Les Schwab in Chehalis claimed to have a matching tire in stock. When we arrived, they had a Continental in 245/55R19, but it was the wrong series. They insisted they could only replace all 4 tires. My tires are nearly new, no thanks guys. Another call and Discount Tire in Lacy (27 miles North) had the correct tire, series, and size, so off we went again. The plugs held, Discount Tire replaced the tire, and shortly after lunch, we once again had 4 good tires.

For the second time, we set off for the Snowgrass Hikers Trailhead. As we got into the I-5 freeway, a car 5 car lengths ahead of us threw up something which left a quarter sized chip in my windshield. We pressed on and arrived at dusk. We camped overnight in Motel Tesla.

On Saturday morning we hiked over to Berry Patch Trailhead and headed North. We took the optional scenic detour to Goat Ridge and found the lookout is now ruins. We continued North and took the Lily Basin Trail #86. We stashed our packs and scooted out to Johnson Peak (7,257′) and tagged the summit at noon.

We descended almost bee-lining towards Heart Lake (a better route than our ascent), returned to our packs, and then visited Goat Lake. The camp sites were all full, the lake shore was crowded, but the lake was empty. I dove in and found out why: it was still ice-cold. We filtered drinking water, ate our first dinner, dried off in the sun, and then pressed onwards.

About a mile past Goat Lake we found an empty campground and set up for the evening. It was a lovely evening, cool and brisk and we slept well under my MSR tarp tent. In the morning we set our sights on the summits of Old Snowy Mountain (7,900′) and Ives Peak (7,920′).

Based on our previous days experience and the forecast, we again left our packs behind and headed for the summit of Old Snowy with just an extra layer and water bottles. Oops. As we ascended the wind picked up and the exposure made us regret the choice. To keep warm we picked up the pace and reached the summit before 10AM. We did not loiter and scurried right back down.

50° with 30-40 mph winds. Brrrr…

Being separated from our layers prevented us from hiking the ridge over to Ives Peak. We descended on the PCT, retrieved our packs, and then hiked out Snowgrass Trail #96 to the trailhead and our car.

Me too!

The scene: It’s a brisk mid-winter Seattle morning. Lucas has decided that we’re riding our bikes to school today. As we emerge from the garage, the sky is brilliant blue and the sun is streaming down in our faces. The lawns up and down the street are all brilliant green as this is our rainy season. It’s a lovely morning and all is well with the world. On this morning, after a night with no cloud cover, it’s still quite chilly and the shaded lawns  are all still frost covered. Both kids eagerly accept the gloves that I had thought to bring for them.

A very short ways from home, Kayla asks us to pause so she can tie her skirt up, keeping it well clear of her back tire. I comment, “hmm, we should get you a rear fender to keep your skirts off that tire.”

Lucas, not wanting to miss out on getting one of anything pipes up, “Should we get one for me too?”

I replied, “Of course, we don’t want your skirts getting dirty, do we?”

Beginner climbing in Yosemite

Mountaineers/Climbers that have been to Yosemite, I need your advice.

I’m going to be near Yosemite soon, with two hikers that have reasonable experience with 4th class rock. Our plan is to introduce them to 5th class trad. What I have in mind is something with a variety of low 5th class routes like Mountaineers Dome near Leavenworth. Suggestions?

Long Range Leaf: driving to Meany Lodge

Can our 2013 Nissan Leaf make it from Seattle to Meany Lodge on a single charge? The distance from our house is 77 miles and the nominal Leaf range is 84 miles. The key factor on this trip is Snoqualmie Pass, and the 3,022 feet we’d have to climb. I figured if I had any range left at the top of the pass, the gain from regenerative braking down the back side would just barely suffice.

At 7AM I pulled up the LEAF app and told the car to warm up the cabin. While still laying in bed. That’s a really nice feature! At 8AM we left Seattle with a toasty warm car and a full charge. I drove in ECO mode with the climate control off and the cruise set at 60 mph. As we passed North Bend, I had about 37 miles to go with a predicted range of 37 miles. That’s also where the climb begins in earnest.

As we climbed the pass, the charge meter dropped rapidly, yielding low battery alerts two miles before the summit. As I crested the pass, I guesstimated 5 miles left (the Leaf stops reporting below 6) plus the 5 miles I’d gain from regen. braking would total 10 miles worth of charge. Since the lodge is 13 miles from the pass, I opted to stop at the Chevron and juice up.

Lucas and I took a 20 minute ice cream break while our Leaf guzzled electrons until it had 10 miles of predicted range. I figured with 10 in the tank plus 5 from braking, I’d have plenty for the climb up to the lodge. We arrived with 8 miles remaining. Without the pit stop, we’d have likely run out a mile or two shy.

At the weekend work party, I took the head off TomCat’s Chevy 292 straight six engine, cut and ground steel plates and pipes, used a MIG welder for the first time (last weld, 25 years ago!), laid culvert, dug water trenches, and pressed apple cider. Lucas had a great time playing with a pack of 8 youngsters whose parents were getting the lodge ready for the ski season.

On Sunday afternoon we left the lodge with a full charge and a predicted range of 81 miles. After climbing 500 feet over the pass, the range crept higher and higher with each mile driven, peaking at 104 miles. As before, the key factor was elevation, and it’s mostly downhill on the return trip. We arrived home with 25 miles of range.

In summary, the Leaf has more than enough range to get home from Meany Lodge, but not quite enough to get there, due primarily to elevation. If we didn’t have another car, we could surely cover the distance by driving slower. With fair weather in daylight, 55 mph should do. If the weather was cold and headlights and/or climate control were needed, it might be possible at 45mph. I wouldn’t consider it fun.