Hello from Snoqualmie Pass, Washington! You may be wondering, isn't that where you and Justin were last time? The answer is no, Washington just has a lot of trail towns with long-S words (Stehekin, Skykomish, Snoqualmie have been the last three). I last wrote in Skykomish, which we left on Friday. Fladhback to then: we had to fend off people offering to give us rides back to the trail, since we really wanted to hit the deli for breakfast before we hiked. Washington is a ridiculously friendly place to hitch. Finally we got our sandwiches and lo and behold, there was Jerry Dinsmore pulled up outside, waiting to drive us. The Dinsmores are a famous pct trail angel family, who host many of the hikers who come through WA. We didn't stay with them because we were soaking, freezing, and couldn't stand the idea of potentially having to camp in anyone's backyard for even one night, free and generous as the offer was. But we were thrilled to meet Jerry and experience a little trail magic in the form of a ride to the trail without even needing to stick out a thumb! Jerry's truck had three stickers on the rear window: PCT, Pacific Crest Trail Association (the org that does advocacy and policy for the trail), and one that read "Hiker Trash." His custom license plate reads "PCT DAD" and his wife's reads "PCT MOM." We hugged when he dropped us off and he gave us a hard time for being too fancy to stay with him. We probably deserved that.
The next 3.5 days of hiking were simply amazing!! The weather was perfect and the views epic. It was such a huge change from the previous section. We had views of snow covered peaks! We walked by beautiful alpine lakes! We looked across sweeping valleys! It got us wondering what incredible views we'd missed in the previous section, when all we saw was clouds (which we were socked in) and rain (don't want to talk about it).
There were three highlights of this section: running into Lady Mac & Gourmet, the Goldmyer Hot Springs, and the jets. I'll start with the jets. Pretty simple: two Air Force jets flew right over us. We've seen a lot of military planes this summer (in a lot of places, we don't see any commercial flights - except when we were along the flight paths to LA and later SF - so most planes are military). But these two jets were so low and flying so fast! One of them came into the valley sideways! My dad (proud Air Force vet) has a license plate holder that says: "jet noise, the sound of freedom." Damn straight, dad.
Next highlight was running into Lady Mac and Gourmet! LM and G are a couple from Hawaii. We met them our first day on the trail (June 5!), and saw them thought the desert and the Sierra. They are awesome and taught us many important things, including how to thread blisters and tips on trail vegetarianism. However, everyone scattered a bit with the fires - some people skipped ahead to Ashland, some like us flip flopped, others quit altogether - so we weren't sure we'd ever see them again. So we were thrilled to run into them again while they were filtering water and we were deep in a hiking/podcast trance. Hopefully next time we see them will be on a visit to the Big Island!
Finally, we hit up the Goldmyer Hot Springs! They are off on a side trail from the PCT, and are totally worth it! Most beautiful hot springs I've ever seen. Very lovely place to spend a morning, soaking our tired muscles. Unfortunately, they are only accessible via the PCT, so you've gotta earn it.
From there, we hiked to the trailhead and were dismayed to learn that that the trail dumps you out on the road 2 miles before the hotel. I hate road walking and I especially hate closing the day with a road walk, because walking on asphalt really hurts when you've already logged a bunch of miles. But then a car drove by! We stuck out our thumbs and the car stopped! Well, actually that car drove by. But the next car stopped! It was two incoming University of Washington freshman, who we'd spoken to on the trail earlier - they'd been out for a day hike. As we sat in their backseat, they confessed to having unsuccessfully tried hitchhiking once. "So, ummm, can you actually get around that way?" they asked us. Response: "well, we are sitting in your car right now. So... Yeah."
Snoqualmie has treated us right so far. We picked up our resupply boxes and two care packages (thanks, Emily L. and Jenny T!!) from the local Chevron, where the staff stores them in a walk-in beer fridge. Seriously. The evidence is below. And then the guy who runs the food truck in the Chevron parking lot offered us free beers! Honestly, it's going to be hard to get back on the trail tomorrow. 250 more miles in Washington and in our adventure overall! Already nostalgic (and sad for the imminent days when 1,000 calorie afternoon snacks - which both Justin and I did on Saturday - will no longer be acceptable).
**Update from Snoqualmie, here on the morning of the 9th. It's raining and cold out, but supposed to be sunny by tomorrow. Having learned our lesson (WA is awesome in the sun, less so otherwise), we're going to hunker down here for another day. Staying in hotels for multiple nights (on no salary) gets unreasonable though, so I struck a deal with Justin: we can only stay tonight if, rather than eating meals at the mediocre attached restaurant, I will instead cook us camping food in our hotel room, using our camp stove. (This should be a familiar scene to my Patagonia friends, for whom I once prepared a delicious spaghetti dinner - and nearly asphyxiated - in the bathroom of a very classy Chilean hotel.) Ramen is on the menu tonight, if you want to stop by!
Captions:
1. Jerry Dinsmore's car. We hikers are so lucky to have dedicated trail angels like Jerry and his wife!
2. & 3. The awesome vistas we'd missed in the rain. Turns out Washington is really beautiful!
4. One of the many slightly sketchy creek/ravine crossings we do daily.
5. Reunited with Lady Mac and Gourmet!
6. Lake Ivanhoe did not disappoint. Awesome lunch spot.
7 & 8. Goldmyer Hot Springs. Prettiest natural hot springs I'd ever seen (and Matthew has dragged me to quite a few).
9. Getting to be fall up in here!
10. The scene inside the beer fridge in the Chevron.
11. From outside the beer fridge.
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