Walk About Martinez -- Glacier Peak

We saw nothing but ghostly forests and the silhouettes of great cliffs dissolving into the mist when we hiked through Glacier Peak Wilderness last year in fog, drizzle and flat out rain.  On the fourth day, the clouds cleared and we looked back at what we had been hiking around, and were floored by the beauty of Glacier Peak, its massive ice fields rolling thick and smooth down its northern slopes like a giant ice cream sundae.  At that moment I vowed to come back to WA and try another shot on the weather roulette wheel.  So far this year we had been very lucky with sun and warm temperatures from our start at White Pass, southeast of Mt. Rainier. 

Glacier Peak is one of three spots on the Pacific Crest Trail vying for most scenic places from Mexico to Canada, the other two being Goat Rocks also in WA and anywhere in the High Sierra in CA. This time I would see it.  From the beginning of this section at Stevens Pass, WA, it is nearly 100 miles of wilderness around the base of Glacier Peak to the town of Stehekin on Lake Chelan, the last resupply point before the Canadian Border.  

On 9-2-11, Jerry Dinsmore, our trail angel host in the little town of Baring, WA gave Richard and I a ride to the trailhead, along with our thru hiker friends, Sasha and Hoka-hey.  On trail, it was only a few minutes however before the “thrus” left us in the dust.   They had the speed of a whole summer’s hiking behind them, and we didn’t even try to keep up.  I intended to take my time this year and really enjoy the trail, and at a slower pace.  It really didn’t matter if I made it to Canada, or just slowly enjoyed the beauty of the northern Cascades.

From Steven’s Pass, the trail drops in elevation for several miles through dense forest before beginning to climb to alpine country.  The spring flowers, still blooming in September due to the late season this year, create a world of color on the steep meadowed hillsides.  Purple lupine is rampant, dotted with golden tiger lilies, somewhat muted by the soft ivory of valerian.  The trees change from massive at the lower elevations to fine, perfectly slim evergreens as we move up, covering whole mountains, or in small stands on the edges of the flowered hills.   

Several miles in we met Kevin Green, the Backcountry Ranger for the Skykomish Ranger District and followed along, getting to see him in action, cleaning up after less that thinking campers who had left large fire grates, pots and old camp chairs at their campsite in this otherwise untouched wilderness.  It gave me an understanding of just what it takes to keep the PCT so pristine.   Rangers, trail crews and trail angels -- such as Hop Sing who we met picking up beer cans left by a large pack train in the wilderness south of Mt. Rainier -- are out there picking up after the backcountry slobs. 

Ranger Green cared about the backcountry.  He had thru hiked the PCT back in 2008, and clearly loved it on a personal and professional level.  Richard and I hiked on ahead, but that evening we found ourselves camped in a bit of flat ground in a dense forest, when Kevin hiked up the trail and we invited him to share the spot with us.  We reminded him that it was after five and his professional day was over.  He joined us gladly, and we spent the evening trading hiking stories and hearing about the dream job for a hiker, that of backcountry ranger.  It is part enforcement, part trail and clean up crew, and a whole lot of just being there in the wilderness to answer camper’s questions about the plants, geology, and topography of the area.  He was always ready for the most important trail question, “Where the hell am I?”  He was clearly a ranger with a calling.  The next morning I shadowed him for several miles as he did his job and of course invited him to visit Martinez someday for a tour of John Muir’s home, a seminal spot for all things wild.  

We were hiking up the trail together the next morning when we rounded a bend and between the trees got our first view of Glacier Peak towering over the crags and valleys of the surrounding terrain, its southern flanks still mostly snow bound, pink hued in the early morning light.  There is a delicacy to this volcano that is different from the other super massive Cascade volcanoes.  Rainier with its rounded top is simply huge.  Its upper half stays white year round, containing the largest collection of active glaciers in the lower 48, and it dominates its surroundings.  Glacier Peak in contrast, hangs on the terrain as if suspended on the horizon, light, checkered snow and rock on this sun exposed, southern side. 

All day we slowly closed the gap between us and that gorgeous peak.  The closer we got and the higher, the more snow we had to cross, but all of it was soft, easy to manage without ice axe or crampons.  In a few places it was downright rotten, snow bridges just barely covering hidden streams, pockmarked with holes giving way to the rushing water beneath.  That is the kind of snow you explore very delicately, as falling through can wet your shoes, or break your leg, and in the worst cases, kill you.  We poked and prodded with our hiking poles and made it through without mishap.  

Night found us camped at idyllic Lake Sally Ann, nestled in the arms of a glacial cirque.  Its far side was rimmed with snow, a great patch of which had fallen into the lake and floated over to the outlet on our side, a mountain iceberg.  

During the next few days we traced a broad semicircle around the west side of Glacier Peak.  It was always present and so different from last year, always cloud free.  We met one local backpacker who proudly proclaimed, “Glacier Peak has been out all week!”  He had hiked this trail three times before and never seen the peak and he was elated to finally see what he had been hiking on. 

The views along this stretch of trail are some of the most breathtaking of the whole PCT.  The last look at Rainier, now far to the south is replaced by the immediacy of Glacier Peak, its ice fields becoming more and more pronounced as we rounded to the northern flanks.  But ultimately it is the view from Dolly Vista into the heart of the North Cascades that simply stops you in your tracks.  The nearby hills and valleys covered in flowers and stands of timberline forest open onto a line of mountains followed by more mountains, a seeming endless progression into the far distance.  We came through in the early morning and watched five marmots playing in the trail and in the flowers, eating them, rolling in them and bounding over them like I’ve seen coyotes do on Mt. Diablo.  I’d never seen marmots so active.  

The weather was marvelous for marmots and men as we started this day, most of which was a long, long switchback down a very overgrown trail from the Dolly Vista to Milk Creek, so named for the color the glacial flour brought to the water from high on the mountain.  Then it was up an even more overgrown trail, switchbacking for miles through thimbleberry, raspberry and cow parsnip.  We were so exhausted by the climb and struggle through the brush that we camped at the first sight of water on top of the ridge.  The next day would bring us to the last significant river crossing of this 360 mile stretch of Washington trail, the Suiattle River.

The whole section of trail around Glacier Peak had been closed since 2002, when storms took out 8 bridges over dangerous stream and river crossings.  It had only reopened last year.  The bridges had been replaced or were in some way passable in their broken state, when I came through it on my long hike, except the main bridge over the Suiattle River, the most dangerous of the bunch, which had still been crossable only via a large log.  You scooted over on your butt, or took your life in your hands and walked over it.  A person had been killed, several years before, when he fell off this log into the raging Suiattle.  Last year I scooted on my butt.  A new and very substantial bridge was under construction then, three miles down river from the notorious log, but was not yet usable. 

This year we hiked a long morning through blow down so big the trail crews had dug tunnels under some of the fallen logs rather that try to cut them out or blow them up.  I stopped to take a shot of Richard crawling through one of these, and then hurried down trail to a swift little creek at the bottom of the grade next to a camp site my party had used last year.  The trail got a bit sketchy at this camp but I stepped past the scrub alders and waited at the creek so Richard and I could cross together.  

I took off my pack and rested against a log and wondered what was taking Richard so long.  Maybe a bathroom break.  That’s OK, I could use the rest.  I daydreamed as I watched the rushing water, and then realized it was too long even for a bathroom break.  Walking back into the camp site, looking the other way this time, I saw a very wide, brand new trail, coming close to the camp, but stopping about 30 feet short of the PCT.  It was six feet wide and had obviously just been graded.  It was the new trail to the still not completed Suiattle River Bridge, and I suddenly realized Richard might have taken it.  I took off running, sprinting without a pack like a horse with no rider.  The trail was like a high school track it was so smooth and perfect, and it felt great to just run like the wind.  This was the new PCT, not on any map yet and without any boulder, log or rut obstructions.  

A quarter mile, then a half mile flew by, and at about a mile I finally started to flag, and realized that I was in serious bear country, and had left my backpack alone, full of goodies just ripe for the picking.  I abruptly turned around.  Now I was running uphill, back to safeguard that pack, with the small hope that Richard had been on a rather long break and would be at my pack waiting.

No such luck, but the pack was safe.  I headed off taking the shorter hike on the old PCT to that damned log, so I could head Richard off on the other side of the river at the point where the old and new trails would meet.  Last year I had crossed that log on a drizzly morning with several of my hiking friends, Wolf Taffy and Mike, and we had all scooted across on our butts, and it hadn’t seemed so bad.  This year, the adrenaline pumping, the river roaring beneath me and without a soul in sight, it was scary, really scary.  Every scootch forward seemed to knock my pack from one side to the other, and I felt that any imbalance and the weight of the pack would simply pull me over.  I’d seen it happen to others before on smaller crossings with not such catastrophic results.  Here, I’d be dead.

Alive on the other side, I hurried down river to the convergence of the two trails where I posted a note that said, “Richard wait here, I’ve gone back to the new bridge looking for you, Scott” and then fast hiked down trail to hopefully meet him coming up the other direction.  But after a mile or so, I was tired and beat and turned around, now with a new nagging possibility.  What if he had been on a long break and had followed me to that awful log.  Now it wasn’t just separation in the wilderness, there was a worst case scenario that included possible drowning.  No radio, no people to enlist for help, separation in the wilderness just never feels good.

I sat down at the junction and had lunch, lay back and rested, and watched with great relief as Richard hiked up trail, his face just as riddled with anxiety as mine.  We hugged and were so glad to see each other.  He had a sign all written out on a scrap of cardboard reading, “Scott, I’m down by the river looking for you, Richard” Those few hours of uncertainty had seemed so much longer.  Richard had made it to the little camp and couldn’t easily find the trail through the alders and then had noticed the new trail and assumed that I was hiking ahead on that.  We had been fifteen feet apart at most, but didn’t know of the existence of the other PCT, me the new one, Richard the old.  Things can go wrong so quickly in the woods.

The next morning we woke at 3:45 and were on trail by 4:30, to make it to High Bridge and the North Cascades National Park bus that would take us to the little resort town of Stehekin, and our last resupply before diving into the North Cascades and the final push to Canada.  

It was completely black in the night forest, with just a glimmer of starlight.  The moon had set and the winter constellation Orion was high in the early morning sky.  The hiking season was ending soon.  I knew that I was climbing but couldn’t see any more of the trail than my head lamp could illumine, when Richard called out, “Scott, look behind you.”  I turned and saw Glacier Peak, floating, silver in the starlight, etherial, like a slice of the crescent moon, hovering, horizontal between the blackness of the forest and the night sky.  Oh, for a tripod.  None of the pictures I shot could capture the magic of that mountain, hovering over the earth.  It was a moment of great beauty, an intersection of blackness and starlight magnified by snow, like I’ve never seen before.  We got up really early on more days after seeing that vision.  Magic.

As the dawn was turning silver to gold and then every hue of pink, I saw a porcupine slowly moving up the trail ahead of me.  His quills also glistened in the early morning light, waving like a shimmering fan, or a child’s slinky, back and forth with every waddle.  He stopped and looked back at me and then waddled on, unconcerned.

“How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make - leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone - we all dwell in a house of one room - the world with the firmament for its roof - and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.”   -- John Muir