Pacific Crest Trail - Days 177-178 - Stevens Pass

Start: Mile 2453.0 - Glacier Lake
End: Mile 2480.1 - Backcountry campsite

From a distance, we saw a ridiculously steep spike in the elevation profile and were critical of through-hikers turning a climb into a competition, but after arriving at the base of the competitive climb, started lacing up our kicks.

I like to think that I’ve somehow transcended competition and competitiveness, but apparently still have my stupid lizard brain impetus to out-compete.

Maybe distance travelled per unit of time isn’t the best measurement of … anything worthwhile?

We may never know.

This picture is gorgeous. That’s all I want to say.

From this vantage point, we were well within touch of the parking lot at Stevens Pass ski (and mountain bike, and disc golf) resort.

We met a handful of backpackers and day hikers in the area seeking out a singular view and/or campsite as spectacular as this, which reinforced our gratitude for the opportunity to experience places like these without a “real world” gravity pulling us away.

This was a strange set of vehicles to walk up to. Literally my first car (a 1985 white Jeep Cherokee) and my current car (a 2021 white Toyota 4Runner) parked next to each other.

There’s some probability law that explains this.

We hiked up to the lifts at the summit of Stevens Pass.

I can‘t help but think the chairlift to a summit is a metaphor for an average American’s prosperity.

Americans enjoy riding bicycles … downhill.

Sophisticated Hippie? Wasn’t being sophisticated enough to rebel against a war mongering capitalistic society the entire point?

I struggle with how to interface with previous generations, and consistently and constantly make assumptions and judgements about how their decisions (or lack thereof) affect my experience navigating the world.

I think this “Sophisticated Hippie“ store sums up my view of the generations preceding me in general. “Hippie” being a temporary and convenient gravitational identifier of any number of “rebellious” baby boomers who as far as I can tell generationally and unanimously bartered any social or collective credibility for cold hard assets.

”Sophisticated Hippie“ is perhaps a dare? A dare that anyone outside of a specific self-ingratiating self-fellating generation would care to associate themselves with the sort while paying a premium for imported products?

Paprika.

You don’t have healthcare, public transportation, housing, education, or any sort of guaranteed jobs or income for “essential” labor despite both state and federal entities being historically wealthy entities.

Paprika.

but all of us hippies own homes and property and didn‘t achieve the education we now demand of you in the name of Sophistication.

But you don’t have to take it from me.

“go to college, kids” … “If you work hard you may not be absolutely torpedoed by a combination of interest rates, speculation, entrenched and unequivocally greedy interest, and land owners who simply got here before you”

Kristin sent this to me and I loved it because it’s very accurate.

There are no bad questions.

When billionaires like Warren Buffett are flying the flag upside down maybe we should take note.

That’s a joke, billionaires extract money from labor on an almost unfathomable scale and have zero right to fly an American flag, much less expect attention when it’s flown upside down.

The skies in Leavenworth became able-to-look-directly-at-the-sun smoky

—

I like to think that I was a Wunder Brat when I was young.

So much potential lost :/

Kristin sewed up the one pocket of my shorts - which by default held my phone which would slip through the previous hole in my pocket if I put it in vertically.

She is a wizard.

I feel like Mr. Huge Beautiful Metallic Knight probably gets defeated by power lines within 60 feet in any direction.

Smoke.

I love this art on the gear store.

A community’s prioritization of public restroom facilities is representative of its desirability of visitation.

Providing facilities for the most basic of human needs would seem to be unequivocally addressed, but quality public facilities are far from common.

A squirrel was in the trees above tossing down pinecones - not the relatively unthreatening open ponderosa or piñon pinecones, but the small incredibly dense ones from (?) that had me wishing I had a hard hat.

We passed a lot of backpackers through here. Many of them congratulated us. Many sections of the PCT through Washington are bucket-list worthy backpacking trips, and we‘re grateful to be seeing so much incredible wilderness.