Sorry this next photo and topic might be offensive to sensitive eyes and ears, but if you go to the bathroom in the woods: dig a hole, bury what's in there and pack out your wipes or tissues. Is that too much to ask for people to be responsible when they are in the forest. Some areas even require the blue bag "pack it out" approach. You can read about the Mount Rainier policy of the disposing of waste and human waste in THIS article.
*we saw WAY too much of this "toilet paper in bushes" at camp and on the ground along the trailš¢
Road crossing, *see the bucket on the back of my husband's pack. It is a waste/garbage bucket. Pack it out or dig a hole where allowed. It's not that hard to do.
Day eight photo on the trail.
This was a very large stump, what a magnificent tree it must have been.
As we are hiking along my eye is always looking for beautiful or unusual things. I looked at a tree and saw something tucked away in it. I went closer to it and spied this! I'm not a fan of unnatural things left in forests: geocaches, painted rocks etc. but I have to admit this was cute. I took it out mainly because of my bias about this type of thing but also because I had a troll in my teens. So it tugged at my memory strings. It now travels in my camera case, with it's note❤
Our ever present wildflowers
Road crossing
We got to climb over some trees again
We hiked along the Cedar River Watershed where WAY too many of these signs had been posted, O.K. we get it we won't go into your property. We passed a through hiker in this section, it was always fun to stop and chat with these people as they were doing their thru hike to Mexico. We also chatted with others who were just section hiking like us. This fellow had hiked to the northernmost (very remote) terminus, touched it and then turned around to continue his southbound journey. At the time he was hiking with a friend who was joining him to Stampede pass. His wife was doing all of his re-supplies. *We saw him again (alone this time) on our journey from White pass to Snoqualmie. Still moving well, still smiling.
We stopped at Twilight lake for lunch.
A very weathered sign
We sat near this old walkway while we ate.
As on the Wonderland trail many of these walkways are in need of repair.
Pausing at an old unused road
I was always appreciative of nicely placed stones for crossing the creeks, this one was perfect!
We walked up a steep rocky trail to get to Mirror lake
Our trail came out at the top of this waterfall
We could see part of Keechelus lake from the trail.
More nicely placed stones for water crossing
Mirror lake, quite a few people were camping at this large lake. It has short trail access from roads.
It was strange to see this sign and realize that this part of our journey was nearing it's end. Only 8 miles to Snoqualmie pass.
Looking at a rocky hillside that we would need to cross.
As you can see, it looked like a very rocky area to cross but it had a nice trail set in it.
Making our way towards camp for the night.
Bummer the camp sites were already full. So on we marched after refilling our water containers for that night's cooking and the next day's journey.
We didn't find any other designated camping areas but we found this fine logging road! My husband made a visible and physical barricade in case anyone drove up in the night, so we wouldn't get ran over.
We had a view of Granite Mtn. and it's tower LOOKOUT from camp!
A heart rock near our tent❤
Relive video of our route:
*One of my Guthook screenshots accidentally made it way into the video.
total miles - 8.8
total ascent - 1864
total descent - 1768
to be continued......
