CS_DutchM1 to Snowqualmie Pass
Miles: 18
Sometimes you roll the dice and it all works out.
I parted ways with Hayden yesterday when I decided to embark upon the Goldmeyer Alternate. Today, I woke up with my alarm at 6:30AM. I immediately realized that I only had 18 miles to do for the day, which was shorter than the equivalent PCT section by a handful of miles. So I snoozed my alarm until 9AM. It was everything I hoped it would be. I didn't hit the trail until 9:30AM, and only had a mile under my belt at 10AM (AKA hiker noon), but I felt refreshed and finally like I was in control of my hike.
The morning highlight: nature called, quite insistently, but I was traversing a steep forested slope and couldn't find anywhere convenient to go. Since everything on the downhill side is visible to the trail, I decided to scale 100 feet up the uphill side to find my bathroom. All went well, until I had to find a way back down to the trail. Since it's much more difficult to climb down such a steep hill, and I didn't have the superhuman strength of someone on the verge of an accident, I couldn't find a good way down. Not to be deterred, I took a few steps toward the trail and, quite suddenly, proceeded to fall the rest of the way down the hill. Two lessons: first, be careful where you climb. Second, the forest topsoil is quite loose and is happy to slide right down the hill with you. My arms and dignity were both scraped up during the fall.
After about five miles of heavy brush hiking, I came to an old logging road. One of the goals of the PCT is to avoid road hiking, but I was happy for the flat path and gentle grade. I cruised down the old forest road, listening to friend messages and a touch of Kanye. It feels strange to listen to Kanye and Girl Talk in the middle of the woods, but the beat encourages my hiking and the nature vs lyrics contrast makes me grin to myself.
The logging road ended in a short path to the hot springs. I had actually found them! I was unsure if I'd find the hot springs as this was my first off PCT navigation, rendering my PCT specific GPS/map apps pretty useless. I also had no personal confirmation that the hot springs existed since the weekend backpackers who I had crossed had never been to the springs.
Nonetheless, I found 'em! Just like adventurers of yore, I had set off into the wilderness and found what I sought: hot springs.
I was greeted by a bubbly caretaker at the entrance cabin, checked in, paid, signed a waiver, and was read the rules. It was quite the process just to visit a natural spring. She handed me a receipt for my payment. I looked down at the receipt and said, "will someone... be checking this?" "Haha, oh no. I forgot that you types don't like more stuff." Indeed.
I spent the next two hours relaxing in the hot springs. It was sublime. My muscles regenerated at Wolverine speeds. The hottest spring was a cylindrical cave twenty five feet deep and only five feet wide, with jagged walls and floors. There was a small rounded wooden bench at the back of the cave. The water was 107 degrees and the air was thick with heat and humidity. I hunched over on the bench, my feet submerged in the several feet of water, and I just watched beads of sweat form on my arms. The only light in the cave shone in from the entrance; my eyes took ten minutes to adjust to the darkness to he point that I could see the walls around me. Though there were five other people in the three small pools outside, I was the only one braving the cave. I imagined that I was part mountain ascetic and part abominable sweaty cave monster. I also imagined the walls caving in and had to do breathing exercises to calm myself down.
I spent another hour alternating between the cold pool (46 degrees) and the hot-ish pool. I tried to remember the interval timing that pro athletes use in their post-game alternation between ice baths and hot tubs, because I'm just like them. I concluded my hot spring-xperience with another cave monster session. It felt so good but I had already finished my bottle of Gatorade and was worried that I was getting dehydrated.
Feeling good as new, I walked back to the check-in cabin where I had left my gear. The hosts gave me water, directions, and high fives. They told me that I had eleven miles to Snowqualmie Pass: seven miles up, and four miles down. I was not afeared since I assumed that "seven miles up" was a general statement. I should have been afeared. I ended up with a grueling 3,500 foot climb over the course of the last three uphill miles. I also ran short of water during the dry uphill spell and had to macguyver myself some agua. I found a cliff face that was covered in algae and slowly dropping water. By pressing my hand on the cliff face and pointing my index finger down toward the mouth of my bottle, I made the water coalesce and run down my finger. Five minutes of waiting, and I had a full bottle of algae/hand water. Bonus: I also felt like a wizard summoning water out of a rock.
Summiting the massive climb, I was rewarded with extraordinary views of Snow Lake. The lake shimmered in the late day sun and was a bright turquoise blue. Though the area around the lake seemed popular with day hikers, I would definitely come back and bring Em.
I descended the other side of the Pass into Snowqualmie, or what I thought was Snowqualmie. Rather, I had emerged into Alpenton (something like that), a ski resort community. I had a mile and a half road walk into Snowqualmie. No matter, now I got the fun experience of being the grungy backpacker guy walking in the road while all the passing vacationer cars slow down to get in a good ogle.
I arrived in Snowqualmie and had three to-do's: get my resupply of food for the next section,eat dinner, find a place to sleep. I wandered directly into the Chevron food mart, and emerged with bulging bags of grub. Upon exiting the Chevron store, I noticed a grocery store a couple hundred feet away. Well, I probably should have looked around for half a second before buying five day's worth of groceries from a gas station.
Next, I went to the only open restaurant in town, the Summit Pancake House. They seated me in a way back section, though there was space up front, likely because I reeled and was wearing my hiker attire (sweaty shirt and ripped up short running shorts). There was one couple seated a few booths away from me. I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, fries, and a side of soup. I gobbled down the soup and, when the waiter delivered my burger, I asked for a glass of chocolate milk. As soon as I uttered the words "chocolate milk" the couple in the other booth spun around towards me. "You're a thru hiker." It was a statement, not a question. It ended up that they were thru hikers as well, and that we had actually met each other before. They had finished their Canadian border journey and had been coming back into Hart's Pass, my starting point, on the day that I set out. I had actually talked to them for a moment then and my mom had given them a bunch of fruit and carrot juices that she had in the car, which they had gobbled down.
Finishing dinner, I got a text from James that he was staying at the Summit Inn and that he didn't have any more space in his room but there was another thru hiker with an empty bed. Yeeeeesssssssssss. The best news. I soon met Jaro (pronounced Yaw-row) in the lobby and followed him to our room. Splitting that room was the easiest money that I've ever spent. Things that were amazing about that hotel room: hot shower, power outlets, soft queen-size bed, I did not have to find a secluded place behind the gas station to pitch my tent, I did not have to worry about local police asking me to "move along" in the middle of the night because I had pitched my tent behind the gas station, and good old cold tap water.
Hilariously, Jaro and I got to talking and, after a fair amount of trail chat, he told me that he works in consulting at BCG. We both thought that it was head shakingly strange and hilarious to be talking about management consulting in Snowqualmie Pass while hiking the PCT. I told him that he was lucky that we hadn't met in that hotel room a year ago because then I'd be asking him for interview tips. He answered, totally deadpan and with his Czech accent, "we can do a case if you want." We both laughed, dropped the subject, and went back to the more pertinent topic of determining which parts of our disintegrating shoes are structural and which are merely aesthetic.