Washington PCT 2015: Day 3

Day three began with an experiment in pacing. I tend to hike a bit faster than my wife so she left a little before me while I packed up the last of camp. It made for a very quiet hour or so of hiking before I caught up. I sang a bit. It is weird singing out loud in the middle of a forest because you feel alone and like someone is listening at the same time. Eventually, I found Laura getting some water at a stream.

Looking back south toward Hood before the trail turns east

One of a few rare moments out of the woods

We continued on over the next ridge... it was mostly just forest... pretty... lots of trees... and not much else. Finally, we reached the top of the next ridge around lunch time. We looked out over wind river valley and started down into it.

The gorge is gone!

From the top of the ridge that day

Trout creek and the wind river valley

On the way down, Laura got her first ever bee-sting! She found that it didn't agree with her. Here's how things went down: We were walking along minding out own business. Laura was talking about something or another and then suddenly she slapped at her ear and gave a yelp of pain! I figure it liked the smell of her and thought she was a flower? For a little bit she was worried that she might be allergic and start swelling out of control but that fear passed with time. We treated it with a little antiseptic wipe and eventually continued on down the hill.

Crossing the creek

Weird experimental field in the valley... don't eat the daisies!

Wind river valley was beautiful and also a little weird feeling. Trout creek was nice, then we passed through some fields that just felt strange, like the TV show "Lost". We made many jokes about what was going to happen next, where the hatch was likely to be located, listening for the sound of the smoke monster, etc. After a dinner on the banks of Wind river, we continued on to Panther creek, a total of 16 miles!

Big fungus

Crossing wind river

At Panther creek, we met a cool older guy named Allen, whose trail name was "Boyscout". We camped together a few hundred feet from the creek. He had hiked south from White Pass and told us crazy stories of white-out snowstorms and difficult hiking in the Goat Rocks area. When we told him about our climb out of the gorge, he gave a loud cackle and said, "Just you wait!" He was hilarious and a little bit over-the-top but he was also correct about that! The climb out of the gorge was nothing compared to what we would face later.