PCT Mile 2532 – 2553
Miles Hiked = 21
After a cold, wet and rainy day yesterday Sydney and I woke up to sunshine and clear blue skies. Yay!!! We didn’t start hiking as early as normal – it took us a while to dry out our gear in the early morning sunshine.
There was not a cloud in the sky as I took this photo looking north from our campsite – it was about 8:30am.
Shortly after we started hiking we had a nice view back at Glacier Peak. We were finally on the north side of this large glaciated mountain. It took us four days to navigate around Glacier Peak, but they were some of the most memorable miles on the entire PCT.
Today the trail was full of downed trees. I had to navigate around a lot of fallen trees in northern Oregon about a month ago, but so far this hadn’t been much of a problem in Washington. Until today.
There were also some large trees along the trail that hadn’t fallen!
A little before 1pm we crossed over a large new footbridge that crossed over the Suiattle River. The trail had been detoured several years ago to cross over this large river at the new bridge after the previous old bridge had washed away. The detour was a long, narrow “U” shaped alternate trail that followed along the course of the river – up one side, over the bridge and the back down the other side. It added about six miles to our hike.
It was still a pretty hike. And it wasn’t raining!
After paralleling the river for several miles, we crossed over this small bridge over Miners Creek, a small creek that drains into the Suiattle River. The old PCT had crossed over the larger river near here before the old bridge had failed.
For the next eight miles the trail made a slow and steady climb of three thousand feet. The trail was relatively new and was nicely graded so that the elevation gain didn’t seem too challenging. But it still took about three hours.
Late in the afternoon, as we neared the top of the climb, we crossed over a fifty yard obstacle course of blow downs, probably from an avalanche last winter.
After navigating the obstacle course we neared the top of our climb and were treated to some nice views.
The Plant of the Day is called Hard-skinned Puffballs (aka Earthballs). These are a type of fungi that take on a roughly spherical shape and are related to mushrooms. They may be toxic so do not eat.
We didn’t make camp until 7pm but it was a nice flat area and there was a stream nearby.
Thanks for reading!
One Dream, One Path, Four Feet 
It’s just so beautiful there. I still don’t know how you two can hike so far every day, you are amazing. Glad you got some sunshine. Steve has had so much rain in Puyallup! Thanks again for sharing.
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Thanks Carrie – I appreciate your comments and thanks for following!
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Great post as always. The views are beautiful. The pic with Sydney in front of the tree, cool pic, that tree is huge! Thanks for the tip on the mushrooms, unique shape, I’ve never seen one like that.
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