Section H: Highway 14 at Bridge of the Gods to Highway
12 near White Pass.

I have not hiked this section, each time I have it scheduled, something happens that I have to cancel.  Maybe soon it will be my turn.

My granddaughter, Jana age 14 and I decided to hike the stretch of the PCT from White Pass to Crystal Mountain Ski area.  The ski area is located a couple of miles off the PCT and a 1400 ft elevation drop.  My son Greg, Jana's Dad, drove us to the Trailhead at White Pass and we started off at 11.30 a.m.

This section of the trail has lots of lakes, so there was no problem with water. The hike was also before lightweight backpacking, so our packs were heavy for the three and one half days.  We saw several through hikers and their packs were all half the size of ours.  This dwelt in my mind over the years. The first night we camped at Buesch Lake and it was windy and cold that night.

Jana,out of the wind drinking Hot Choc.

The weather became warm and the next few days we passed many lakes, passing the slopes of Fryingpan Mountain, coming to the outlet of Fish lake headwaters of the Bumping River.  There are numerous good campsites all along here. We start to see views of the big mountains, Rainier, Adams and St. Helens. Next we come around the Cascade divide and start a long trek along the Cascade backbone.  As we hike, we are now in Rainier National Park and see Anderson Lake and Dewey Lake.  And again lots of campsites.

We are now getting close to Highway 410 and Chinook Pass. We cross the footbridge over the highway and start our hike up to Sheep Lake, about one and half miles from Sheep Lake is my favorite saddle, called Sourdough Gap.  It leads you out of one drainage into a very different drainage on the opposite side.  Here we are at the Bridge that crosses Hiway 410 and below is my favorite saddle.          

                                                                  Jana at Sourdough Gap

From here our hike takes us down to Bear Gap, and the 'signage' for a number of trails.  The PCT goes straight ahead and slightly up hill.  Our trail to Crystal Mountain takes us straight ahead and below the PCT within a few hundred yards we no longer see the PCT. The hike from here to the Lodge at Crystal Mountain seems to take forever.  We traversed on the trail, all the time seeing the chairlifts and the buildings. We went by the old mines and finally we popped out on a ski hill (the old T- Bar Hill). Then down to the parking lot, where we were picked up.

We had a great hike and Jana got to swim in the lakes and my mind really started thinking of lightweight backpacking.

Here we are again a couple of years later, Jana and I, starting at the parking lot at the Crystal Mountain Ski resort.  Now we have to hike back up the hill and hike south along the traverse to the Signs where we left the PCT at Bear Gap.

Everything is dry this year, so we will be on the lookout for water. Once up at Bear Gap we turn onto the PCT and head north.  Again we see all the ski lifts and condominiums, but this time we are much higher on the mountains.  We go around Pickhandle Point and onto the south slopes of Crown Point. It is marvelous scenery up here.  We are at Bulllion Pass which has a narrow saddle and then to Scout Pass.  We continue on over Barnard Saddle and Hayden Pass both at 6150 ft. then over Martinson Gap and a burned area from an old fire. Then on to Saddle Springs, where we spend our first night.

Our hike continues and we visit at Camp Urich, we read all the signs left by Mike Urich and the cabin looks great, however we decided not to spend the night there. We continue on until we find a spring and then camp.  This time our packs are much lighter, we have a 2 person silnylon tarp, using a piece of Tyvek as our ground cloth.  Our stove is an Esbit, burning the Esbit tablets.

We are now in the logged off areas and have detours on logging roads and everything is really dusty, the trail must have about four inches of dust on it. Next, we are on a up and down portion of trail and then a real brushy area and finally the blueberry bushes, which we stop and ate and then we start the climb to Blowout Mountain.  I think we stayed the night at Sheets Pass in a campsite which still had a trickle of water flowing in a small creek. We encounter more blueberry bushes and the fruit tasted very good. Somewhere on this part of the trail, Jana got stung by a bunch of hornets; it hurt and was not much fun.

Neither Jana or I liked the hike through the logged off areas and the many little logging roads that we had to detour on.  We were dirty and wanted to stay beside a lake for one night.  Our sights were focused on Lizard Lake for out next campsite and  we got there about 3 p.m. and walked around the lake looking for a spot to stay.

The lake was small and the only spot to put the tarp was in a turn-around for cars.  Other people had camped there before us, there was garbage strewn around on the ground and in the lake, also on the edge of the lake we found dirty diapers. The ground had four inches of dust on it and the water in this lake did not look appealing to drink even when purified.  We decided to stay the night as it was quite a few miles until the next water. We got the tarp up and used my silnylon poncho on the road end of the tarp to stop the dust from passing cars engulfing us.  I saw a pickup truck parked by the lake and went over to see if they might have extra water.  They did and they gave us a half gallon which did us nicely for dinner and the next morning.

By now Jana was really fed up with the hike and I was close behind her, we made the decision to hitch out the next morning.  The first car that came by stopped and picked us up; they let us off at the Pancake House at Snoqualmie Pass and were nice enough to let us use their cell phone to make arrangements to be picked up.  While waiting in the restaurant we talked with through hikers who had reached Manning Park and were now trying to do a return North to South hike.

Here we are back home and drying out our gear.

For this section I still have to hike from Stampede Pass to Snoqualmie 18.2 miles, will do this another time.

Pat Gutherie and Ron Collicut, both long time friends from skiing in British Columbia, and myself agreed to hike the section from Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass.

This was the first section I hiked on the PCT and my first ever multi day hike. I was very much the novice and had no idea where and what we were doing or going.  I remember going to the grocery store with my friend Pat to purchase our food. I do not remember having the freeze dried food we use today. I do not think we ever just boiled water and added it to the pouch.  Pat brought the tent and the stove for us to share.  Ron brought all his own gear and tent.

Here we are at the Trailhead and raring to go with heavy packs.

We spent the first night at Ridge Lake and we had hiked a whopping seven miles.  I remember this distinctly as I thought we would never get there. I learned how to purify water here and how to use the stove and to help set up the tent.

This is what I remember the most, walking with my head down and stopping every so often to have a look around and to see where I was going.

The views were great, the lakes and the mountains were awesome to me. Ron was in charge of the map and I had no idea that a PCT book existed.  He was looking at the water sources constantly.  This was in late September and a number of the creeks were dried up. It was another one of those dry years that I know so much about to-day.  Pat was the long distance hiker, she had completed the Appalachian Trail a few years prior.  So I felt like I was in good hands and had nothing to worry about except to put one foot in front of the other... Here we are crossing a dried up creek which in normal years would have a torrent of water coming down it.  The Weather stayed hot for the first part of this hike; and then it turned cold.

I learned a number of things on this hike, I now know what a 'Whiz' is.  At one point in the hike; we crossed a meadow and found a sign for a toilet.  I had never seen one in the wilderness before and of course it was marvelous, three sides with a view and a toilet seat no less.  We also met people doing the trail by horseback.  I was very envious of the lawn chairs they were packing with them. When it turned cold, Ron said he thought we might be in for a snowstorm and he had some suggestions about completing the rest of the trail.

We were not doing high mileage days; I think we might have been averaging ten   miles each day. When we were camped by Glacier Lake, he showed us on the map that we could get out a day sooner if we took the Surprise Lake trail which headed north for about four miles to meet highway two about eight miles east of Skykomish. We took this advice, and hiked out to this trailhead the next day.  Then we hitched to Skykomish, got a motel, had showers and went to the bar for drinks and food and to our astonishment, not one person cared that we had just hiked 60.7 miles.

I did not make a journal for this section and I am going by the pictures we took.  We saw some amazing scenery and I learned a lot about backpacking and got the bug for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and also for lightweight back packing.

We cleaned up pretty good and Barb came down from Canada and picked us all up, dropping me off in Seattle and continuing back to B.C. with the others.    I still have 13.8 miles to do on this section to complete it.  I think however I will need to do the entire section again in order to remember it all.                               

Cheers,   Marge (the old gal)

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