I’m an engineer by training. I analyze things and look for causal relationships when trying to find out why something isn’t working. I’ve seen a problem for the last few days and have been investigating. One observation: the majority of through hikers are getting a minimum of 20 miles per day with a few outliers getting 45, what do they have in common? 1) They have relatively light loads (under 30 pounds). 2) They tend to not take breaks, or very short ones if they do. 3) They get up early and start hiking. Ding, ding, ding, we have spotted the problem.
When the alarm went off today, the three hikers, who we had camped near, were already gone. It was only 6:30 and their camping spots were cold to the touch. I heard them talking as they left before 6. I tried to nudge Bunny then, but SHE BIT ME! Let sleeping dogs lie! When the alarm went off at 6:30, I was a bit gun shy, so I hit the snooze trying to placate her. After the snooze, I made the coffee and set out the food and waited patiently for Bunny to awaken on her own. At 7:30, I took a stab at waking her up. “Is that a bear I hear outside of our tent?” I know better than to just go for a direct wake up.
With the adrenaline rush from the “near bear sighting” we were able to get our act together and be ready by…8:40. What the hell? We used to be able to be on the trail by 8 at least once a week. As I was lacing up my boots, two sobos strolled into camp. I asked where they camped last night and they said “Sue Settle River.” At least that’s what I heard. That was where I had hoped to make it yesterday but we ran out of light. We haven’t even started hiking and these two hikers already have 5 miles in. “It’s one small step for a hiker. One giant step to wake Bunny up early.”
While we were talking to Pebbles and Swayed, two more hikers passed our camp. (I’m seeing a trend). We hadn’t gotten started yet, and we’ve already seen more people than we saw all of yesterday (if you include the three hikers we camped with but didn’t see yesterday or today). Pebbles and Swayed just started at the Canadian border about a week ago. They are both LASHers (as we will soon be known as). For the non-regular reader (Dad, I’m sure you remember, but for everyone else), a LASHer is a Long Ass Section Hiker. Pebbles likes in Tahoe. Last year, she hiked from Mexico up. This year she’s hiking from Canada down. Swayed hiked 2200 miles last year and stopped right before Goat Rocks because of forest fires.
9 is the new 8. We started our hike at 9 for about the 4th day in a row. Bunny accused me of being a “slave driver” last night. I had a goal of 22.4 miles yesterday but stopped 5 miles short because the Bunny was hurting. Not the quiet “this is for real, I can’t talk” kind of pain that is serious, but the “I’m going to keep complaining until I get my way” type of pain that is a daily occurrence. Would a slave driver stop 5 miles short? Would a slave driver allow the day to start an hour late, consistently, on a near daily basis? Would a slave driver use a Snickers, instead of a whip, as a carrot to keep things moving? 0 for 3, makes Easy a great motivator and NOT a slave driver.
Another observation is that if we give WA a break and put her on the list, she gets cocky and throws obstacles our way. If we remove WA from the list, she gives us an amazing experience. For now, WA is on the cusp, but today was amazing. It truly was a “walk in the woods” (I’ll borrow from a failed thru-hiker since that’s what we have become this year). For the first 5 miles we walked among the most amazing old growth forest I’ve ever been in. The trees were mind boggling in their immensity. One person had taken the time to count the rings on one fallen tree and made it up to 600. That’s before Columbus even gets credit for discovering a continent where 10 million people already lived but hadn’t discovered that they lived on it.
Once we crossed the Sue Settle River (some locals call it the Suiattle River), the forest turned to a much younger one. Well less than 200 years but still a lot of history. Sue Settle was a history teacher, so the name fits. The Suiattle River is a glacial river—fast moving and dangerous. We can look up and see where this river starts. We even walked over some of the headwaters of some of the minor tributaries yesterday. As we were standing on the bridge watching the amazing volume of water rushing under our feet, I was mesmerized thinking that just a matter of hours ago, this water was snow and ice. And it doesn’t stop!
About 9 miles in for the day, we crossed another of Sue’s tributaries and decided it was time for a break and some food. Just before stopping, we passed a group of four older guys (they were in their 40s but I still recognize anyone 30 and older as old). They asked if we knew what the weather was going to do. I practiced by WA native answer…”the next 10 days should be good” thus ensuring that it will rain at least one day this weekend.
We could look across the Sue Settle River and see all the destructionSue has done over the years. She is ever widening the valley and carrying trees and boulders down. She has washed back the banks leaving open scars on the land. I’d hate to be anywhere near if she were to have a Lahore. This is the exact opposite of the real Sue Settle. I’ve never even seen her get angry, but I’m sure she gets very quiet when she does. I’ve seen her anger turn to depression (case in point, the last Presidential election) but I can relate.
The afternoon was just a 2000’ climb towards Sue Settle Pass. This was, without a doubt, the most pleasant 2000’ climb I have ever experience. We stayed in dense forest all the way up. The higher we went, the rougher the surrounding terrain became. This means that harvesting the trees was too expensive so we had more old growth forest. The PCT was laid out in such a fashion that we barely broke 400’/mile incline which is as close to level you can hope for on the AT (which we hiked last year—everybody drink).
At the 14 mile mark, we crossed Miners Creek again. This was the same creek where we ate lunch nearly 2000’ below. There was easy access to water and plenty of great campsites. I offered the option of stopping here, even adding an additional mile to our section deficit. Does this sound like a slave driver to anyone? Bunny said “No, we need more miles!” Attention! Attention! Pot calling kettle black. Am I the only one hearing slave driver, now?
This is one instance where Guthook let us down. It wasn’t really Guthook, it was a comment in Guthook which screwed us. Guthook said there was a stream in 0.9 miles (which was there) but someone commented there was a campsite there, also (there wasn’t). From the get go this morning, I had targeted a spot at 14.9 miles, below our 15 mile minimal goal. I thinks this puts the whole slave driver issue to bed, once and for all. We ended up getting enough water from the stream and walking an extra mile, uphill, in the snow, both ways, until we found a good camping spot. Spoiler alert, I let the Bunny have a Snickers for dessert after dinner tonight, now I only have peanut M&Ms to keep her going tomorrow.
And that concludes an entire entry without once mentioning poop—or does it? About a mile after leaving camp this morning, Bunny told me she was having a familiar urge. I started looking for a private spot hoping it was the urge I like as well, but she meant poop. I asked her, very kindly, to please dig an extra hole. Once again, she refused. When my turn came, I had to break my own sod, which I gladly do knowing that I will not intercept someone else’s load. All I will say about what happened next was that I wish a had some little plastic eyes with floating pupils because this is the closest I’ve ever come to recreating the emoji 💩.
EFG