Day 9 was our longest hike yet. It had some good views but I mostly remember the mosquitoes. We started out in great spirits. The sun was rising over the top of beautiful Mount Adams! We hiked a while, crossed the Lewis River, and enjoyed the many views as we circled to the north side of the mountain.
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| Morning view of Adams |
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| One fork of the Lewis River |
The entire day was spent hiking with Ken and Jesse. We all learned all lot about each other and had a general good time.
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| The mountain was so close, we could see cracks in its glaciers |
As we neared the north side of the mountain, we came to a delicious natural spring. We had a nice lunch there and started across a wide ridge toward the Goat Rocks. Things got dry again very quickly and we were glad we had a lot of water at the spring.
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| Our next target, Mount Rainier |
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| Hiking through the flowers |
After hiking quite some time on a dusty trail through lodge-pole pines, we came upon an older darker forest of firs. It was such a contrast from the previous forests we had been hiking in that we jokingly referred to it at "the forest of no return". Little did we know how fitting the title was.
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| Pines near potato mountain |
As we wound through the old forest, we noted that the shade allowed for a cooler more moist climate. This was very conducive to insects, particularly mosquitoes. At first, there were just a few but things quickly got worse. Soon there were small clouds following each of us. We tried running to lose them... doesn't work well. We tried non-DEET repellant... didn't work. We put on nets, but they didn't cover everything. Ken luckily had some strong DEET-laced repellant. It seemed to do the trick.
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| The forest of no return |
But we still had trouble whenever we stopped. We did our best to hurry to a place we could eat dinner without major mosquitoes. On our way up to the top of a mountain (just south of Walupt lake) we ran into an old man. We was just out in the woods taking a day hike. He didn't seem bothered at all by the bugs... Finally, we got to the to of the hill and an open field but the skeeters were everywhere. We ended up eating a hurried meal with head nets and repellant in place. I also got bitten on my bum while taking a dump.
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| Yummy snack from Trout Lake |
We raced down the other side of the ridge hoping the mosquitoes would dissipate in the next valley. No such luck. After 20 miles of hiking, we were tired and set up camp next to a small stream. It turned out to be a very well populated camp in the end... with Laura and I, Ken, Jesse, a pair of girls that hid in their tent with a radio and talked with no one, and a trail-runner who ran into camp at twilight and quickly set up a tent.
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| This is what hiding from mosquitoes looks like |
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