Washington PCT 2015: Day 23

Day 23 was another or our favorite days of hiking ever! It started out a bit cloudy, as it had been since our stay at Snoqualmie Pass. In fact, as we approached the pass, we hiked right up into clouds. It was really cool to see them rushing past us into the next valley to the east!

Before sunrise

After sunrise

I would love to climb some of these

As we neared the top of dutch millers gap, the morning sun began to burn the clouds away, revealing the mountains behind. The terrain was pretty level and grassy with little streams everywhere meeting flowing down into the valley. It was magical!

Clouds rolling up the valley

View after clouds passed by

The clouds put up a valiant effort

But the sun won in the end!

As we started down the east side of dutch millers gap, we came to a cliff of sorts with Lake Ivanhoe below. We started switchback down the side of the cliff, crossing a pool between two small waterfalls. We rested here and I took my shoes of to build a small bridge of rocks across the stream.

Heading over to the east side of the pass

First view of Lake Ivanhoe

Laura looking bad-ass!

A nice resting spot!

We arrived at the lake and chose to hike around different sides of it and meet at the other side. I took pictures of Laura across the lake, though she is pretty difficult to find because of its size. We hiked down into the next valley, scaring some large pheasant out of the bushes, and eventually got back onto the official PCT again. We rested at the bridge over the Waptus river and met a lot more hikers, some of whom we would hike with all the way to Canada!

Almost to the lake

Cool rock formation

We hiked down that wall

View to the east

After lunch and lots of talking with people at the river, we continued on past Waptus lake and up the valley to the north. There were quite a few hikers on this main path who were hiking to and from lakes in this wilderness area. My favorite was a group of kids who were on their first big hike. When we told them that we were hiking across the whole state, they were amazed. Then we pointed out a through-hiker of the PCT and explained that they were nearly across the entire USA. Those kids were shocked! I don't think they had ever considered such a possibility!

Crossing an improvised bridge

We climbed many miles out of the Waptus Lake valley. It became a dry and hot day. Also, Laura's body started to complain again. We finally arrived at Deep Lake in the afternoon. We were torn about between staying at that lake and continuing up to Cathedral Rock and dry camping. We rarely dry camped (camped with no nearby water) because then you have to be careful with the water you use and drink. We chose to rest and eat at the lake while deciding what to do.

That's where we're going

Deep Lake and Cathedral Rock

Resting time!

Great view while soaking my feet

After a nice rest and meal, Laura said she wanted to go for it! She was tired and not feeling her best but she wanted to give it her best shot and push through to the top. It was a beautiful cool evening to hike and we made some pretty fast miles. When my wife decides she will do something she does not mess around!

Heading back to the trail

Cool stream crossing

Heading up the mountain

Up, up, up!

Almost there!

View from the top

Looking south

We finally arrived at the saddle below Cathedral Rock. We had sailed up that mountain. I was super proud of Laura and offered to set up the tent and things while she wallowed in her awesomeness! It was chilly up on the saddle and the wind started to pick up later in the evening but our tent was a solid one. We had a nice dinner including a dessert of freeze dried apple crisp. It tasted amazing!

Deep Lake

View to the northeast from camp

As we were starting to get to sleep, we heard a large animal walking around outside our tent. It was still light enough to see what it was so I went and checked. There was a 3-point buck standing about 20 feet from our tent grazing. It was a cool sight that our cameras unfortunately were not equipped to capture well. After 20+ miles of hiking, we got cozy in our bags on this chilly night and dreamed of beautiful mountains!

Did you hear something outside?