Pacific Crest Trail - Day 184 - Rainy Pass
Start: Mile 2586.3 Backcountry campsite
End: Mile 2612.6 - Backcountry campsite
The winds shifted and brought smoke in from wildfires to the south east.
A research trail cam. We followed moose footprints along the trail for a few miles - probably Murphy continuing up the canyon after he went down for a drink at the creek.
A handful of the hunters we’ve chatted with showed us pictures of huge elk they captured on trail cams deployed in the wilderness areas. To me, using cameras to find animals for hunting on public land seems like cheating and I would ban the use of remote sensing technology for hunting purposes. Reasonable environmental regulations on United States National Forest land would necessarily require a functioning government, so I’m not going to hold my breath, but I think I will write a letter.
The forest/park service really phoned it in with this sign.
Waking up early has its perks.
LOL. It’s fine.
Just a really simple beautiful bridge. I wonder how they planed the top 🤔.
Very stoked to catch Rainy Pass on a sunny day. We got very mixed weather reports from different people in Stehekin - many calling out rain for the entirety of the remaining stretch.
The colors through here were wild. I expected lots of grey rock and dark evergreens so the sand colored rock with bright light greens of larches and deep reds of the late season berry bushes were surprising and incredibly beautiful.
This was the first time I’ve seen larches. Apparently people seek them out in autumn when they turn a golden yellow before losing their needles before winter. In New England, people referred to those who went seeking views of autumn foliage as “leaf peepers”. A day ago, if you would have called me a “larch peeper”, I’d probably have been pretty miffed - oh the difference a few hours makes.
A bunch of larch peeping autumn perverts took advantage of the beautiful weather and hiked up to Cutthroat Pass from Rainy Pass. The vistas were muted by smoke, but it’s certainly up there with the prettiest places we’ve been on this trail.
2600 miles!
We met a pair of hikers through here and one was heavily involved with the Canadian Great Divide Trail that runs through the Canadian Rockies north of the American Continental Divide Trail. The GDT was already on our radar, and after talking to these guys, it‘s something we’re really looking forward to taking on soon - although for that one we’re going to need grizzly bear spray.
We hiked past a bunch of weekend backpackers hauling out rock climbing gear. It’s awesome to see so many Washingtonians out and about on trail.
An unbelievably nice day in late September fewer than 50 miles from the border.
Larch peepin’.
This guy is a Northern Rubber Boa.
The last few miles of the day (it’s always the last few miles) were overgrown and frustrating. We wound up making it to our target campsite immediately before a big climb and found it was really tiny, slanted, and ridged with tree roots. Since it was dark and drizzling, we decided to call it a day instead of climbing a few miles to the next potential campsite.
While the end of the day was frustrating, we were very stoked to have made it through a place called Rainy Pass while enjoying the sunshine nearly the entire day.