Mile 2,317 to White Pass
Miles: 25
Woke up to Orion packing up his tent at 6AM. He’s pushing the 25 miles to get to White Pass by 5PM today to pick up a package at Kracker Barrel before it closes.
Note: Kracker Barrel is a convenience store in White Pass that’s a hiker favorite and that’s totally unrelated to the ubiquitous national chain of biscuit- and hate-mongering Cracker Barrel freeway restaurants. Go to Kracker Barrel. Don’t go to Cracker Barrel. Also, how crazy is it that crackers were once stored in barrels?
I gazed through my tent’s bug net, acknowledged Orion’s gusto, rolled over, and went back to sleep. It’s chilly and mosquito-y out there. It’s warm and comfy in here. Easy decision. Besides, I’m not supposed to meet my mom and uncle in White Pass until tomorrow so I’ll be staying there tonight anyway. No need to rush. I’ll take it easy today and roll into White Pass around 7PM or something.
Spoiler alert: that’s not how things worked out.
I finally got up with my alarm around 8AM. I feasted on my final strawberry pop tart in my tent, spilling crumbs everywhere and eating them off of the tent floor. As soon as I emerged from my tent, the mosquito smorgasbord began. The buggers put a pep in my step and, within minutes, I bid adieu to Old Goat, the weekend backpacker who’s campsite we had crashed and who had just eaten an entire Mountain House (deluxe dehydrated meal-in-a-bag, requires hot water, typically 2 servings), and I hot footed it out of there.
Dewey Lake was a beautiful site, calm and misty, in the cool morning air but the mosquito scourge gave me no time to pause. I carried a liter and a half of water saved from the day before and planned to fill up at a stream five miles ahead. Central Washington’s infrequent water sources, paired with my total lack of filtration or purification chemicals, made water planning an important task, but according to my apps there were plenty of water sources ahead so I wasn’t worried (ominous foreshadowing).
Climbing out of the lake’s basin, I ascended a ridgeline, hoping for some views. The top of the ridge remained in the trees and below nearby ridgelines, so I was rewarded with a splendid view of looking through close-up trees at far-away trees. At the crest, I ran into a volunteer trail crew milling about and resting. The first guy I saw carried an enormous antique crosscut saw lashed over his shoulder. Since we live in the age of chainsaws, I’d never seen a crosscut saw outside of museums and sepia tone logger photographs. He happily and unsolicitedly began telling me about it. Behind him, one of his crew-mates rolled his eyes. Like most people in the wilderness wearing pants and long-sleeve shirts, they were oblivious to the bugs and wanted to make conversation. Like most people in the wilderness wearing a t-shirt and running shorts, I was covered in bugs and wanted to run away.
The soles of my shoes are coming loose, providing easy-to-grab handles for stowaway plants AKA trail flair
A mile ahead, and five miles out of camp, I came across a stream and filled up one of my water bottles. I decided not to carry any more since I anticipated ample sources ahead. The lighter my pack, the faster I hiked, and the sooner that I’d arrive at more water. Yes! I’m doing the thru-hiker thing!
I listened to the rest of Aziz Ansari’s Modern Romance as I hiked. The book was good enough to pull me in so much that I’d laugh out loud at his quips and forget that I was trudging ahead. Finishing Aziz, I moved onto Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Gladwell’s anecdote-rich long-form social science lit review will pull me in, right? Kind of. The stories were interesting but Gladwell read the book himself and his dulcet tones made me sleepy. Also, I think Gladwell gets way more credit than he’s due and that his books should have a big “content aggregator - author does not come up with this stuff” label on the front cover. Final complaint, Gladwell pronounces the word “year” as “yurr”.
Descending into the valley, I sat on a log and checked my progress. 10 miles down, 15 to go. Half a liter of water left. Lots of water sources ahead. Time: 11:30AM.
I hike a few miles on to the next water source and find that it’s a scummy swampy pond. OK, not going to drink that. Moving on.
A mile later, another gross pond. I open up my apps again. Holy shit. All of the water sources ahead are ponds. Why the f didn’t that register before? I’ve got half a liter of water and 13 miles to go. It’s the hottest part of the day, and it’s a scorcher. This is not good. This isn’t fatal territory, I can always get sick drinking gnarly pond water, but pond or not it’s going to be uncomfortable.
I kick it up a notch. The trail is climbing but in good condition; I can probably hike at a 3.2 mph pace putting me in White Pass in 4 hours. I run into three day hikers who ask me how far I’m going on the trail. “Just Washington” and I speed past. I can hear them behind me mimicking my voice, “Oh how far are you going? Oh just Washington? Oh, just hundreds of miles?” Good one, guys, but I’m not in the mood.
The trail passes me in a blur. More ponds, each one scummier than the last. Malcom Gladwell is talking about Greek statues. Clif bars are out of the question since it takes half a liter of water to wash them down. Why do all of my Kind bars include nuts, chocolate, AND sea salt? Somehow there’s dirt in my mouth but I don’t want to expel liquid from my body to spit it out. I swallow the dirt.
During hour 3, my thoughts get a bit fuzzy. Maybe I should drink pond water. Maybe I should find a side trail to a road. Maybe I should stop and wait for another hiker to come along so that I can bum some water or use their filter. Dehydration is supposed to majorly affect decision-making, so I tell myself that I made a specific plan before I got dehydrated and that I should stick to it. But that plan was just “keep hiking”. The dehydrated devil on my shoulder whispers “it’s not a plan if it’s what you’ve been doing all along. ‘Keep hiking’ is the same as ‘don’t do anything’. You should lie down.”
Two miles out of White Pass, I finally find a running stream. Hallelujah! I’d been descending for quite a while and was pretty sure that the stream was just run-off from one of the gross ponds on higher ground, but so be it. Malcolm Gladwell is talking about heart attacks. That sounds worse than gross water. The dehydrated devil on my shoulder reminds me of something that I heard third-hand a long time ago, “you know, mountain streams purify themselves every fifty yards.” It sounds like BS but the dehydrated angel on my shoulder just shrugs. I drink the cold, delicious water, in small rapid sips. I lower the bottle and, for the first time, notice the vast quantity of horse crap strewn across the trail all around me. Malcolm Gladwell drones on about the symptoms of cardiac arrest.
I hike the final miles into White Pass feeling like I’m on a victory lap. I’ve got full water bottles and I’m about to eat some hot food. I’m not even bothered when, arriving at the highway, I remember that Kracker Barrel is half a mile down the road.
I walk up to Kracker Barrel at 4:45PM. Orion is sitting at a picnic table outside drinking a 24oz can of Budweiser, the contents of his resupply box spread out in front of him. Presented with an opportunity to sit on a bench or chair, all other plans escape my mind and I park myself across from him. He tells me that he too booked it to get here by 5PM. He tells me that he too did it on less than 3 liters of water. He tells me that the trail notes were wrong and that the store is open until 7PM. I smile and shake my head. So long as you make it through, it’s not a fuck-up, it’s just another adventure on the trail. I head inside for drinks, snacks, and the joy of indoor plumbing.
Since Kracker Barrel was open until 7PM, I stayed there until 7PM. I made calls for the first time in four days, drank powerade, and ate every edible-looking item remaining in their hot-food case. The three courses of my meal, in order, were a corn dog, an order of tots, and a “crispito” which ended up being a chimichanga full of molten meat-cheese. It was everything that its name promised it would be. As I eat the crispito, two hikers emerge from the store and ask us if we’d like a 24oz can of Budweiser clamato. Apparently, they tried a couple sips and couldn’t handle it, probably because clamato is gross. My hiker impulse takes over, “sure, I’ll take it.” It’s warm, somehow warmer than the ambient air temperature. Orion and I pass it back and forth, grimacing with each sip. Orion mutters, charitably, “it’s probably alright when it’s cold.”
I talk to my mom and, major surprise, we make a plan for her to pick me up early tomorrow for me to join the annual Olson family reunion in Northern Washington. It’ll be a culture shock to be plucked from the wilderness and dropped into a normal event, but all I can think about is the potluck spread. I picture a heaping plate of potato salad, swedish meatballs, lefse, and blackberry pie.
Em and I get on the phone and chat for three hours; the type of conversation that progresses beyond updates to narrating what we’re doing and thinking about. I feel giddy to be back in touch and on the same level. It’s been weeks.
Staying on the phone with Em, I scout out my sleeping options for the night. There’s a motel nearby with rooms for $190. Friggin ski resort towns. That’s out of the question. I could hike back to the trail and along it to find a site, but that would entail three miles tonight and three again in the morning. No way. My final option is “stealth camping”. Stealth camping is the thru-hiker term for discreetly camping in an un-authorized site, ex: on a dirt patch behind Kracker Barrel, or on a side road a quarter of a mile away. Orion wishes me good luck with a grin and heads off for the trail.
Eventually, I cross the highway and hop a gate to explore one of the White Pass ski resort parking lots. The lot is empty and set back from the road. I’d be out of site of the road, but the woods are rocky so there’s nowhere far off the parking lot where I can pitch a tent. I end up kicking clear an uneven, rocky, dusty tent-sized patch adjacent to the far end of the football-field sized lot and I pitch my tent. I send a panorama of my tent-site to Em and she responds, “you are so out in the open.” Yes, well, stealth campers can’t be choosers. At least I’ve got plenty of water and the crispito is sitting well. I fall asleep dreaming of tomorrow’s warm food, company, ample hydration, and indoor plumbing.
