Day 110

Still raining! Being disciplined because of yesterday’s excesses, we were standing on Highway 2 hitchhiking by 7:30. We eventually got a ride with two siblings heading into Seattle in the sister’s mint condition Buick station wagon from the seventies. They regaled us with stories and questions while the car slowly climbed up into the cloud which we would hike in all day. They dropped us off in the cold rain at Stevens Pass and we went on our not so merry way. The time for lallygagging was over, so we crushed the challenging terrain—all just steep up and down—with gusto. The rain came and went, so taking advantage of a lull in the rain, we set up in a meadow a few miles before our intended campsite at Lake Sally Ann. This would turn out to be a bit of a bummer, since this lake was among the most beautiful of the entire PCT. Tomorrow we enter to infamous Glacier Peak Wilderness, known for extremely rough trail conditions throughout its rugged and remote terrain, with many hikers reporting massively overgrown trail and near constant blowdowns in the Milk Creek valley bringing speed down to a crawl, sometimes literally. From the PCTA website: “Serious caution is advised. Many people would be wise to plan trips elsewhere.”