PCT: Chinook Pass to Mike Urich Cabin

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail has become an exercise in flexibility. After my first two section hikes in 2014, none of the other sections I've done since has ever ended the way I thought it would. This section continues that pattern.

When I discovered my friend Becky had plans to backpack a section of the PCT this summer, I asked to come along. The trip was organized by another mutual friend, Cathy, whom I used to work with who happily extended the invitation to me as well. Cathy retired last year and has become a Pacific Crest Trail afficionado, completing a section in California, and several in Washington the past year. She researched the section she wanted to do and her plan was go to from Chinook Pass to Snoqualmie Pass, section I.

Cathy had planned the section meticulously, preparing a spreadsheet with notes about mile markers and distances, using comments and notes from the app FarOut, which I also use. I am usually the one who plans my backpacking trips and it was nice to have someone else do the planning and research. She discovered that Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest recently instituted a mandatory bear can policy and bought a small bear vault for herself. I already have a large and small bear canister and so I loaned my large canister to Becky so she would not have to purchase one.

Cathy's husband, Randy, had agreed to drive us all up to Chinook Pass and to meet us at various spots along the way to resupply us. What a deal! I've usually had to coordinate dropping cars off at the end and beginning of sections and to have a trail angel willing to drop us off, resupply us and pick us up was amazing. Because of a family reunion obligation I would not be able to hike the ten days that Cathy and Becky wanted to do but Randy said he would pick me up at one of the resupply points and take me home in time for the reunion. The goal was to hike as far as possible in the time allotted.

On Sunday, July 9, Randy picked us all up and drove us to Chinook Pass, about a four hour trip from Whidbey Island. We arrived to a packed parking lot, the area swarming with tourists. We shouldered our packs and Randy got a picture of us at the trailhead and then we started north on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was a warm, sunny day and the tourists quickly thinned out as we began the ascent towards Sheep Lake and Sourdough Gap.

We slowly made our way up from our beginning elevation of 5492 at Chinook Pass to Sheep Lake at 4755 where we stopped to filter water. Towering above Sheep Lake was the mountain we would climb to cross over at Sourdough Gap. I filtered several liters of water but not wanting to have a heavy pack for the upcoming climb ahead, unbeknownst at the time, I left myself about a liter short of what I would truly need.  I was off on the mileage I would need to do until the next water source as well. Plus it was a dry camp the first night.

We continued our climb, marveling at the views along the way.

Below us is Sheep Lake. We trudged upward until we finally got to Sourdough Gap at 6733 feet and we began to descend down the other side. 

The view down the valley towards Placer Lake and Morse Creek was amazing. It was close to 6pm by now and I was worried about finding a level place for all three of us to set up our tents, but eventually we found a spot at 6100 elevation right off the trail and we stopped for the night. I rehydrated a freeze dried package of white bean soup I purchased from REI. Sadly, it was horrible. The thyme overwhelmed everything and I had to force myself to choke it down. We kept hearing a drumming sound and Cathy told us it was a thrush. We tucked our bear cans down below us against a log and retired for the night.

The next morning I woke up early and got my bear can so I could eat a breakfast bar and make a cup of coffee.

Becky and Cathy joined me and we looked down the valley ahead. We packed up and headed north.

Looking back at where we camped for the night at the top of that rocky outcrop.

Cathy is a slow hiker. It was odd for me to have to stop and wait for her because I am always the slowest hiker in the group. She also stops frequently to take pictures. We had all discussed "hiking our own hike" and after traveling only a mile in an hour, Becky and I decided to hike ahead to the next water source before waiting for Cathy again. I was down to about a half liter and we had 5 more miles to go for water through a burn area with no shade as the day got increasingly warm. We sent word back down the trail to Cathy via a southbound hiker of our plan and continued up the trail.

The views were beautiful and we enjoyed the undulating terrain.

We walked a ridgeline for a bit as we went up Pickhandle Gap. I always love walking a ridgeline because of the views on both sides.

We ascended up to Crown Point, (elev. 6309 ft) where we stopped for awhile to enjoy the views of Mount Rainier and I took off my shoes and aired my feet out.

Looking back at where we came from. You can see the Pacific Crest Trail in the center. 

We still had about three and a half miles through a burn area before we could get water and I was starting to feel my lack of water as my energy lagged. We continued on our way and hit the burned area. The sun beat on us and there was no shade along this section. Eventually we reached the water source. It was about 15 feet down from the trail and we filtered water and I guzzled a bunch! So cold and delicious! We sat and waited for Cathy and eventually I did some laundry while we waited. 

After several hours Cathy arrived. Her hip had been really hurting her and she was in a lot of pain. She did not feel able to come down  the hill to the water so we climbed up to the trail again and we continued on about a quarter mile where we came to a shady camping area with close water. There were plenty of camping spots so we set up our tents, got more water and had some dinner. Cathy did not think she would be able to continue with the pain she had been feeling so she contacted her husband and we made plans to hike to the Mike Ulrich cabin which was the first place we could get off trail that he could meet us at. 

Several through hikers rolled in that evening and I off loaded some of my extra food to them since I was now carrying more days than I would need since we were getting off trail. They were happy to have extra to eat and I was happy to not have to carry extra weight. Win, win!

I enjoyed an early morning cup of coffee. We were lucky to have come to a non-burned area to camp in for the night. But for most of the day we hiked through a gray dead burn area. We decided to all hike together for the rest of the hike since Cathy was in pain and occasionally needed some help on some of the slanty sections of the trail and also getting over blow downs.

Becky ahead on the trail. We re-entered the Norse Peak Burn from 2017. New grass and plants have grown back but it will be years before this is again a green shady area. 

Raven's Roost in the distance. I have so many memories of this area from living in the Nile Valley. My husband hiked this area on multiple Survival Hikes when we worked at the Flying H Youth Ranch.

Cathy straddles the log of one of multiple blowdowns in this section. 

It is so odd how there are islands of green in the midst of the gray burn. We did not want to camp amongst the dead trees so we hiked to the Louisiana Saddle just out of the burn zone. We set up our tents for the night and made plans to hike out to the Mike Ulrich cabin the following morning. It had been a 9 mile day.

We got up early and headed for our meeting with Randy at the Mike Ulrich cabin. 

It was nice to be back into green again, but there were still several blowdowns that were challenging to cross with Cathy's sore hip. 

And here are some more blow downs. As a short person, these can be challenging for me, too.

Getting closer!

Abundant water at Government Meadow. Beautiful!

Mike Ulrich Cabin ahead!

We took a quick look around the Mike Ulrich Cabin but I tried not to touch anything. There had been reports of norovirus infecting the cabin and I did not want to get sick. Later, a health official went in and swabbed multiple places in the cabin and discovered every place he swabbed was contaminated with fecal matter. Gross! No wonder so many people got sick after staying there. Washing/disinfecting your hands can be challenging when backpacking, but it is important to try to try.

While we waited for Randy to arrive we laid on the grass and gazed at the sky. Bliss! I do not remember the last time I laid on the ground and just looked at the clouds. 

Eventually Randy arrived and we hiked down the trail to where he'd parked the car. We stopped for lunch in Enumclaw at the Naches Tavern, enjoying a post-hike celebratory hamburger and fries before driving the rest of the way home. This was a shorter trip than planned, but I still enjoyed it. 

2019 Oregon PCT Part 1, Charleton Lake to Elk Lake Resort

Day 1, July 16, 2019 - Mile 1925.6 to 1934.3 - Charleton Lake Forest Road 5897 to Jezebel Lake,  8.7 miles

After a lovely two day stay at North Waldo Lake Campground with many of our cousins, most of whom we haven't seen in years, it is time for Laurie, Kelley and I to start our PCT hike. We pack up our things and are ready to start for the trail head by 9:30 am. Our cousin, Steve, loads up his car with our packs and he drives us up the road to where we are going to begin. Starting at Charleton instead of Irish/Taylor Road, which was a narrow rough jeep type track that we scouted yesterday and decided against trying to take, will add an extra 5 miles to the trip. Laurie is the one who has to return to work and has the least flexible schedule and when offered the choice of hiking about a mile and a half more per day or taking an extra day to hike, she decides to hike a bit extra. Most of our days were planned for 7-8 miles a day, but now we will be doing about 9.5 per day.

We get out, apply mosquito repellent liberally and Steve takes our celebratory beginning photo. Laurie and I both have full mosquito suits and Kelley has a mosquito head net.

Laurie, Me, Kelley

We are excited to be on our journey and ascend into the woods. The shade is nice to hike in but eventually we break out into a large desolate burned area. The burned area allows us to see quite a ways and we look at the views and think about how lucky we are to be doing what we are doing. We meet a couple thru hikers, Mango and Tough Cookie, and I ask them about the snow ahead. They say that there is still snow on the trail in spots and encourage us to bring our microspikes. 

Laurie and Kelley

Another hiker tells us about a nice place ahead for a break and we round a corner and see a rock to climb up. We take snacks and leave our packs down by the trail and climb the rock for the best view of the day. We sit and look at Lily and Davis Lakes in the distance while we snack on nuts and fruit.

Lily Lake and Davis Lake in the distance.

Eventually we continue on down the trail for another hour until we decide to stop for lunch around mile 1929. I smear peanut butter on a tortilla for my lunch but find that I am not a big fan of flour tortillas. I am using my platypus hydration bladder in my backpack and it is easy to stay hydrated with it. The 5,500 foot elevation is a concern to me. Coming from sea level, I find anything over 3,000 feet to be a challenge, but I hope that sleeping for two nights at 4,200 foot Waldo Campground will have prepared me somewhat. I know that good hydration is key to helping get acclimated since the body has to make lots of additional red blood cells to transport oxygen at higher elevations.

Eventually we reach the Three Sisters Wilderness Boundary where we are supposed to self issue a hiking permit. But alas, the box is completely empty.

We take another rest break at Irish Lake and meet more thru hikers; Tropicana and Farmers Market, and then a girl from Quebec called Produce. The mosquitoes eventually chase us away from Irish Lake and we continue up the trail. It is only about a 200 foot elevation gain but we are finding it challenging and continue to take lots of mini breaks. 

We arrive at Brahma Lake at mile 1933.3 at 2:45 pm and decide to re-hydrate Kelley's white bean and turkey chili. We have to filter some water through our Sawyer Squeeze and Kelley has so much extra chili that she gives some to a section hiker, Greg, who accepts happily. 

Laurie filters water

Brahma Lake

Brahma is a very nice camping spot, but we need to get a bit more mileage in so we continue up to Jezebel Lake. It is smaller and the campsite is small, but we fit all three of our tents in to it and Laurie and Kelley go to the lake to soak their feet while I collapse exhausted into my tent after blowing up my air mattress and shaking out my sleeping bag. There are plenty of mosquitoes and ants and I chase the ants out of my tent and squash the mosquitoes who have dared to enter. 

After resting awhile I come out to eat the re-hydrated turkey bean chili, but I am not very hungry. It seems to be typical that I lose my appetite when I am hiking for the first few days. I filter some more water, wash my feet in the lake and then we all retire to our tents to escape the mosquitoes. We talk about the highlights of the day and all agree that the view of Lily Lake from the rock and Steve's kindness in driving us to the trail head, as well as making a quick stop at the beginning to look at Waldo Lake and walk on the dock when one of us was feeling anxious and overwhelmed and needed a moment to calm down, were our two favorite things of the day.

The moon is full which makes it easy to see in the tent whenever I wake up in the night. I toss and turn on my squeaky air mattress and wonder what the trail has in store for us.

Day 2, July 17, Wednesday -  Mile 1934.3 to 1943.4 Jezebel Lake to Horseshoe Lake 3, 9.1 miles 

I sleep okay, nice and warm in my sleeping bag. It is a windy night and I keep thinking that I hear something like rain, but it is dry when I wake up at 6:00 am. I laze around my tent and eat my cold oatmeal/granola that I re-hydrated during the night and it is pretty good but I don't care much for the banana chips. My feet are sore and my left arch is bothering me a bit, so I do some stretching exercises. Around 7:30 am we all start to pack up to leave. I try to place the heaviest things on the right side of my pack to give my left foot a break. Greg passes us by and compliments Kelley on the delicious turkey bean chili she gave him last night. We are ready to hike by 8:30 am, an hour earlier than yesterday. 

Stormy Lake

We start off with a several hundred foot ascent so we don't carry a lot of water with us. Once we reach Stormy Lake we stop to filter some more water. The mosquitoes are really bad. I am so grateful for my $30 bug suit. Laurie has some allergies and has to be very careful about anything chemical and I also don't like to use a lot of Deet, so we both wear our mosquito suits. Kelley slathers on the Deet and uses a head net to keep the mosquitoes away from her eyes and mouth.

This day we pass lots of little lakes and we take lots of little breaks. We see clouds of orange butterflies. We meet hikers Jack and Jill (they seem oddly clean for thru hikers) and Mary who started in Chesterton and does not yet have a trail name. This inspires us to begin thinking up trail names for Laurie and myself. Kelley goes by 20/20 since in 2014 she had cataract surgery which corrected her vision to 20/20 and she was able to enjoy the stars like never before when we hiked that year. 

I suggest that Laurie go by the name Braveheart, since she has been very nervous to do this hike and yet has come anyway. She thinks that maybe she should be called Cowardly Lion, but I soundly reject that idea, because the fact that she is out here means she is definitely not cowardly. Eventually we compromise with the name Lionheart.

Kelley wants to name me something to do with being the leader and organizer of the trip. Scout? Nah, there is a famous trail angel on the PCT with that name. Compass? Nope, don't really care for that. Nothing she comes up with resonates with me but then we think about how a mama duck leads her ducklings and I am christened as Mama Duck, which is not too far off from my college nickname of Becca Duck. 

20/20's home made belt to keep her pants up

We come across a large blow down, probably about 3 feet high which is quite a challenge for us shorties to get over, but we do conquer it. We stop for a late lunch around 2:00 pm and I have a tuna fish tortilla. We get in to Horseshoe Lake campsite 3 around 4:00 pm and we leisurely set up camp, leaving some space in case any other hikers want to camp there. It is a fairly large camping spot. We filter almost 3 gallons of water to fill our water bladders and have water to cook dinner and breakfast. I realize that somehow I am short a dinner meal, but 20/20 and Lionheart have plenty of extra mashed potatoes and gravy so I eat a bit of theirs.

Lionheart pounds in a tent stake

20/20 and Lionheart cook up mashed potatoes and gray

Filtering more water. Drink, eat, sleep and hike

Eventually we retire to our tents. All day we have been thinking about and discussing our top 10 life experiences, and as I write up my notes for the day on the back of the day's maps, I ask them questions about those experiences. Kelley's top life experiences include skydiving, seeing a UFO, our first PCT hike in 2013, experiencing 9/11 in New York and reporting live on NBC radio from a phone booth downtown as she watched the towers come down, seeing the northern lights in Iceland, performing as a stand up comic, and doing the Dos Lesbos comic tour around the country and in Provincetown.

Some of Laurie's experiences were getting chased by a moose, her experiences in Juneau, Alaska as an emancipated 16 year old, bicycling Europe during college, and visiting Paris at Christmas with her two daughters.

Some of my top experiences are standing on top of Baker Dam and feeling it throb beneath my feet as seven flood gates released torrents of flood waters, my 2013 PCT hike, living in Spain during college, visiting Pompeii, seeing the Jewish synagogue in Toledo empty, waiting for 10 families to return so it can be reopened, driving the Al-Can Highway and experiencing Alaska Fire Camp, and seeing Phantom of the Opera performed.

Around 8:30 pm another hiker comes in and quickly sets up his tent. I think the name he tells us is Charms. We stop talking and I lie in my tent looking through the netting at the lake. I want to see stars but it is very cloudy. Lionheart informs us that is raining and I close my rain fly. It isn't supposed to rain, the forecast is only a 10% chance of rain. I have a Garmin InReach and I get the weather on it. It also says no rain, yet it patters gently on my tent throughout the night.

Day 3, July 18, Thursday - Mile 1943.4 to 1952.6 plus an extra mile to Elk Lake Resort, 10.2 miles

Charm's alarm clock goes off at 5:30 am and he is up, packed up and gone before the rest of us have really stirred from our sleeping bags. The rain is still falling gently but we need to get to Elk Lake Resort. Laurie has parked her car there and we will all be going in to Bend for the night to shower and clean up. Since we camped before starting the hike none of us have showered in 5 days. In the morning Laurie will bring Kelley and I back to the trail and then return to Portland to work. We are rain motivated and town motivated and we pack up our things and our wet tents and hit the trail by 8:00 am. Each day we are a little faster at packing up. 

I put on my rain poncho and Lionheart takes a picture and shows it to me. She says, "You look like a jelly bean!" and 20/20 starts singing the Oompa Loompa song from Charlie and the Chocolate  Factory, referring to Violet the girl who blows up like a big blueberry. All I can do is laugh. 

It doesn't take me long to realize that I need my rain skirt on as well. The bushes along the trail are loaded with water and as I break the trail through them they are drenching my shoes and my pants. The rain skirt helps a lot. We hike fast and take very few breaks.

Packed up and ready to go

Cool rock formations near Porky Lake Trail

We finally stop for lunch near mile 1950 in a mosquito infested clearing. The rain has stopped. I pee as fast as I can to try to prevent the mosquitoes from biting my butt, which works pretty well, but I needed to have put Deet on my hands since they are not protected by mosquito netting. Later on I count 22 bites just on my left hand. A beautiful mountain meadow covered in wildflowers becomes our favorite part of that day when we continue.

Larkspur

20/20 crosses a beautiful meadow

Finally we arrive at the Elk Lake Resort turn off, and we see our first real mountain views of the Three Sisters Mountains and Elk Lake. The sun is out and we stop for a moment to take pictures. It feels like a huge accomplishment to be at this point. 

I did it!

We have cell reception here for the first time in 5 days

South Sister?

Two thru hikers, Lawless and Blue, come up the trail from the resort and we all start talking. They assure us that microspikes are not needed in the section ahead. There are a few snowy patches but they are easy to negotiate and have steps kicked into them and I am super excited to receive this news since that means we can leave the microspikes with Laurie to take back to Portland. We chat with Lawless and Blue for almost an hour and I pull out my rain fly and drape it over a tree to dry. My feet are also wet so I take off my shoes and socks, lay the socks on a log to dry in the hot sun and pull out the inserts and dry them in the sun as well, walking around in my shoes without the inserts or socks. I absolutely love hiking in my Darn Tough light wool socks. They are comfortable and not too hot, either.

Finally we decide to continue on and I pack my rain fly and put my socks and shoes back on. My feet are much happier in dry socks and shoes. We arrive at Elk Lake Resort and Laurie decides to reorganize the car to make room for all our packs, so Kelley and I go inside and I get a root beer and then decide to have some real food. We sit at a table and I order a blackened chicken wrap with fries and Kelley gets a beer. My stomach has shrunk and I can only eat half. Kelley helps with the fries and then Laurie eats the other half of the wrap when she is finished packing the car. Elk Lake Resort is a nice hiker friendly little place with outside tables that overlook the lake and marina and I am happy to just hang out there for awhile. 

We drive to Bend and find a room at the Three Sisters Inn and Suites where we all enjoy a long hot shower. We lay our wet tents on the pavement outside the room where it all quickly dries. Laurie and Kelley go to do a load of laundry at the laundry mat while I organize my things and write up some quick trail notes. I had left a resupply box in her car for the second half of the hike and I try to figure out  how much food I will need to bring for the next section, since I always seem to have way too much food.

They return with clean clothing and pastrami sandwiches which we all share. We update on Facebook and check emails and I talk to John before we turn the lights off and sleep like the dead.

Total Mileage for the first three days: 29.5