19 miles
Wind kept us up a good portion of the night, it was ripping through the bowl we were in. We had trees on two sides, but the other two were a bit exposed. It shiftes directions around 3am, which is when we both smelled smoke. We hopped out to check for any visible fires, but saw none. In the morning, everything had a layer of dirt on it from what the wind kicked up. Everything has a grit to it. About 45 minutes after we got started walking, I was leading us downhill and behind me I hear a misstep and “Oh shit!”. I turned around and saw Marie tumbling over the side of the trail, downhill. Oh shit, indeed! I ran over as quick as I could, still wearing my pack. She was up against a tree about 5 feet downhill, on her back, with some of her gear thrown around. I dropped my pack, carefully stepped down to her, and helped her get her pack off. She was stable and seemingly unharmed, just obviously shaken. We got her back on the trail and put a couple band-aids on the small cut she had on her knee. If that happened on some of the traverses we did today, it would have been over. Scary moment for us on trail. We carried on, making our way toward Glacier Peak. We passed a group of trail runners that asked if we were thru-hikers, which we said yes. They said, “Great! There’s trail magic at White Pass!” Awesome. First trail magic this trip, plus it’s just up ahead, and it’s way out in the middle of nowhere in the place you would least expect it. Very excited, we made our way up and sure enough, a hiker named Sol was there with N/A beer, Oreos, Fritos, cookies, and watermelon slices. It was awesome and a huge boost to our day. She was very nice and personable and we chatted for awhile about trail stuff before moving on. Most of the day we hiked in a mild level of smoke (compared with what we hiked through in NorCal, this was nothing). We couldn’t see the fire, but it was burning one ridge over according to the posted notice. There’s a lot of chatter (mainly Far out comments and SoBos) that the next miles will be rough, with overgrowth and blowdowns being the issue. We ran into a bit of that in the last mile or two before Kennedy Creek. It was basically pushing yourself through leaves and branches, while a stream ran underneath you and every so often you have to climb over something. Slow going and tough. Then we have to cross Kennedy Creek, raging at this time of day, and there aren’t any good rock hops or downed logs for getting across. I went barefoot and rolled up my pants as far as I could. Marie just took her shoes off. Marie went first, and I followed a foot behind. She made it with careful steps across the creek. On the other side, we got our shoes back on and walked another half mile uphill to camp.
PCT Hike 