Pacific Crest Trail - Day 170 - White Pass
Start: Mile 2291.8 - Backcountry campsite
End: Mile 2308.1 - Snow Lake
Our gamble on the weather and views clearing up in the morning paid off. Mount Rainier in soft morning light in the distance and Shoe Lake (which we couldn’t see while setting up in a cloud) below.
Looking back towards Goat Rocks to the south.
Mt. Rainier playing peek-a-boo.
Haze from the remote Wildcat fire to the northwest. We have a business decision to make a White Pass - hike or drive around a Forest Service issued fire closure that closes off 10 miles of the PCT west of the Wildcat Fire.
An old Busch beer can. I picked it up and packed it out. Hopefully this trash hadn’t become central to a Pika religion or government or something.
Goodbye Goat Rocks! What an incredible stretch of wilderness!
Evidence of society. Bummer, but maybe there’ll be corn dogs or something.
All of these documents annotated the US Forest Service fire closure for the Wildcat Fire.
The Pacific Crest Trail Association interpreted the published map as indicating that the PCT was closed at Bumping Lake - which effectively meant that the entire 30+ mile stretch to Chinook Pass was blocked. The published trail closure document annotating specific trail closures spelled out that the PCT was open ”up to the Laughing Creek Trail” which provided a reasonable path to walk around the fire on foot through Mt. Rainier National Park.
The messaging regarding exactly where the trail was closed was a disaster with conflicting messaging from the PCTA, trailhead signage, and the US Forest Service. The red “Pacific Crest Trail Closed at Bumping Lake“ document above directly conflicted with the published US Forest Service trail closure document and had zero official letterhead or signed authority. We had zero qualms about ignoring it.
In other fun posts on the White Pass trailhead bulletin board, Virginia Fife lost her Glock handgun at a lake a few miles in.
I took the opportunity to text her, and she suggested I casually commit a Federal crime for money to return her casually misplaced handgun.
🇺🇸!
It was about right here walking along the highway texting Virginia about responsible gun ownership that I realized I left my fanny pack containing my phone charger, battery bank, and a collection of miscellaneous crap that’s often immediately useful somewhere between our camp on the ridge 6 miles back and the trailhead. Whoops :/ I‘d feel way worse if I lost a handgun, though.
A hiker from Montreal Quebec who we camped next to on the ridge showed up with my fanny pack as we were ordering corn dogs from the White Pass gas station and hiker refuge. I’ve returned half a dozen items to hikers on this trek and was immensely grateful to cash in some karmic capital to have my lost item returned.
I bought him a big hot chocolate and a couple IPAs in return. I think we’re square. Maybe he found a Glock as a PCT souvenir too!
Blasted with CINNADUST (TM).
Imagine being an executive whose job it was to decide that Blasted with CINNADUST was crucial enough to include on the packaging for your Cinnamon Toast Crunch x Chex collab to the point where it needed to be trademarked.
It makes you wonder how much his phone bill is insisting he hear Blast me with CINNADUST, General Mills Daddy! from phone sex hotline workers.
We’ll probably never know.
The outflow from this lake is really something. Anyone want an egg salad sandwich?
Aaaand we made it out of White Pass with all of our belongings (including a few more extremely timely warm weather items graciously shipped up here from Bridgeport!) and are back to being a fungi blog.