June 28: In a cloud

Today, we walked in wetness.

It never rained, although at points it seemed like it might. There was a dripping layer of dew, however, which never ceased dripping. The fleeting patches of promising blue sky disappeared early on and remained closed up for nearly the entire day as we ascended up out of Agnes Creek. Along the trail the brush was dense and tall, at points towering up over our heads. The dew and fog drip kept us soaked from the waist down for the entirety of the day. As we came up to Suiattle Pass, we entered a foggy haze, a cloud as it were, that perhaps rarely lifts from its lofty position there. It was cold and we were wet still.

We've entered Glacier Peak Wilderness now, in the Wenatchee National Forest. Our guidebook rates this wilderness as one of the wildest out there, and says that this section of the PCT (Section K for Kapil?) is second in difficulty only to the the John Muir Trail section in the High Sierras of California. Translated to days of hiking, this means going from really high to really low really quickly and really often. Great. No, actually, we are looking forward to seeing a change.

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We have been seeing quite a bit of wildlife out here lately. Today we spotted a few cute Hoary Marmots -- curious, fat rodents (?) that are always to be found, it seems, in the vast boulder fields which splay down from the snowy, wet peaks surrounding us. We've also come face to face with two Mule Deer over the past couple of days. These big-eared beasts are the beautiful, brave cousins to the white-tailed deer we know so well in Upstate New York. This evening we walked by on the trail within ten feet of a pretty doe who started as we aproached but, sensing no ill will I suppose, she held her ground and kept her neck cocked curiously as we made our way by. It brings such an exciting lift to the day to catch glimpses of these creatures out in the wild; feels special somehow.

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We have left the PCT's familiar, graded tread now for the next 50 miles or so. Flooding two summers ago has washed out parts of the trail and since then a detour has been established. The re-route apparently is even more of a challenge than the original PCT through this section, with steeper grades (we trudged up and over Buck's Pass this afternoon, hearts racin' like they haven't in months) and greater gross elevation gain and loss. Hopefully, we won't be too held up. We are working on a limited food supply this week and would like to do this 100-mile section in four days.