Washington PCT 2015: Day 24

Enjoying the morning sun

The morning of the 24th day of our hike was a sunny one. It was also very cold up on a saddle at that elevation. We got up, packed quickly, and found a sunny spot to stay warm while we ate breakfast. It is strange how quickly one can change from feeling warm to cold in the mountains. You can be hiking in the sun and sweating profusely, but if you stop for 5 minutes in the shade you start feeling cold in the cool mountain breeze.

Our campsite by Cathedral Rock

We will hike through that valley

As we hiked north into the next valley, we saw amazing new peaks and glaciers rising around us. I still hope to visit many of them someday. I remember thinking that the PCT is a wonderful trial but it is also only a fraction of what there is to see! We could probably have spent a month exploring some of these wilderness areas and still have plenty to see.
 

Cool glacier! I want to hike there!

So close yet so far!

On the north end of the valley, we crossed a fast moving stream and started climbing up toward Deception pass, and Surprise pass. At Deception Lake, we took a break, ate, and relaxed a bit. We also yelled and listened to our echos. I found a great bucket seat carved right into the rock and we celebrated our hike so far. Laura was feeling great and so was I!

Crossing the stream

Chilling during lunch

View from deception pass

That tall peak is cathedral rock

My awesome strong wife!

After a short foray up the wrong trail, We started on from Deception Lake. This was a beautiful climb and we got a great look back at the wilderness we had hiked through over the past couple days. There was a really cool looking lake called Lake Clarice across from us that I would like to go visit someday! At Pieper Pass, we met a girl from Seattle who sang opera! Laura and her chatted a while about singing. It was really cool to find someone from that line of work in the mountains because it is such a rare thing!

Goodbye, Apline Lakes Wilderness!

Lake Clarice

Almost to Pieper Pass

Finally, we started to descend down to glacier lake. It was a gorgeous place! There was bright white rock everywhere and we had an amazing view of the northern cascade mountains! We looked at them and thought, "Crap! Those mountains look intense!" but we were also very excited!

Glacier Lake

More Glacier Lake

Me and Glacier Lake

The rock wall south of Glacier Lake

We set up camp on the east side of the lake, meeting another hiker who was on his way southbound. He was dealing with an injury and trying to decide if he could keep going. He was the first of many injured southbound hikers we met. A word of advice if you are planning to hike southbound: Take it easy in the northern cascades! They are relentless and your body has not had much time to get into condition so you can injure yourself easily!

My shoes are in bad shape at this point!

We had hiked about 10 miles on day 24. As we slept, clouds rolled into our glacial valley and things got soggy really fast. We were about to have our wettest day of hiking on the trip!