Monday, August 31, 2020

PCT Section H Day six, FS road 23 to Snowgrass flats

While we were eating breakfast my husband read about our day's trail info. It was nice to wake to sun again. We were able to finish drying our things before we packed them away. A nice daylight photo view of our camp.

A heart rock near our cooking area

Happy me, our things are dry!!

Before we left Sheep lake, my daughter and I walked down and got some memory photos❤
Such a beautiful place.


All packed up and ready for another days' adventure!

Hiking out through the flowers

The trail before us with wide open views.


A rest stop with a nice view of Mount Adams

and a shady spot to snooze.

Hiking up towards Cispus pass and the high country❤❤ it was like water to a thirsty soul. I couldn't get enough of the views.





A slightly closer view of the red rock area and the Lupine field above it.

Looking towards the pass.

Still some flowers trying to grow along the rocky dry hillside.

Our daughter a switchback above us.
 
In the photo below you can see that our daughter has reached the pass. 

My husband and I still trudging along, nearly there.

Yay! Cispus pass

A look back at where we'd come from.

A perfect lunch/rest stop.



A turn around the corner and Cispus basin came into view.

If you click on the photo below you'll see the trail we would be hiking on in the distance.

What a spectacular basin, full of wildflowers and water.


My husband wanted to check out a little camp area in the trees. We decided to keep going to find a camp farther along.



We crossed two small tributaries of the Cispus river in the basin area.



A heart rock❤

Pretty white flowers in the meadow below.

The wildflowers were thick near the waterways.

A nice waterfall stop to col off and refill our water bottles.



We passed a campsite where someone had put these rocks together in a heart shape❤

Some crew did a lot of work creating a trail and a stone wall in this rocky area.


Bypass trail

Bistort flowers

A very large cairn

Heading up towards Snowgrass flats, and looking for a camp

We found water and a camp and a view!


Meadow camping❤

My husband read the shortest Patrick McManus story of the trip. I accused him of not telling us the full story, but upon checking up on him he had read the full one. It was lame. The views in the evening on the other hand were incredible. The sunset around Mount Adams and Mount Saint Helens was amazing. I took a panorama of the scene, complete with a small crescent moon. It was a very magical place to spend the night.

Sadly no relive video of this day's route, my Garmin mysteriously stopped tracking. Luckily when we got to camp I restored it to default factory settings. After walking around to practice tracking I was very happy that it began working again. I don't know if it was the cold nights or the high altitude but both my daughter and I had some issues with our Garmin watches on this week's backpacking trip.

Garmin results from my daughters watch - yay!!
Total miles hiked - 6.41 miles
total ascent - 1263 feet
total descent - 791 feet
Elevation profile - 

to be continued.....

Sunday, August 30, 2020

PCT Section H Day five, FS road 23 to Snowgrass flats

When I awoke I could still hear the water dripping from the trees onto our tent. I peeked out my tent door to see what color the sky was. Lo and behold we had blue skies. We were so happy to have survived the wind, rain and cold of the night. We didn't sleep much since it was so miserable, but hurray for better weather.

Our Goatsbeard trees in a better light than the night before.

When we got on the trail and saw the first open sunny section we all stood and soaked up the solar warmth. Small but large blessings on the trail. My husband found a little side trail and wanted to check it out. I wasn't too excited about any extra steps as we were looking at going 10 miles that day, but out I went. We did see some nice views and some very short Huckleberries plants.



A few steps down the trail and he saw another side trail that he wanted to explore, so off we went. The Goat rocks in the distance (I think).

A very nice close up of the tree branches with a very blurry photo of Mount Rainier peeking through. My camera focused on the items in frontšŸ˜¢

We passed some more ponds.

and went over and around some more fallen trees.

We had just finished talking about a saddle in a tree that I had read about and just a few steps down the trail there it was!

Walupt trail junction.


Time for a lunch break.

Just down the trail from our lunch spot was this awesome waterway. We got our water bottles refilled here.

Another Sound of Music meadow moment, except this time with blue skies and no rain parka!

A heart rock❤

Looking back down at the water where we'd had lunch and refilled our bottles.

On top of the world

Some flowers along the way


Mount Adams ever in the distance❤

This section of the trail had wonderful grassy side slopes and flowers all along it, with views of Nanny ridge.




We were no longer chilly from our long night and we savored our water break times.

A heart rock (a bit lumpy, but I'm still claiming it)❤

What a view!

More flowers and heart rocks near a creek bed.





PCT sign

Finally our destination for the night. Sheep lake

It was really busy at the lake, lots of tents around it as we'd managed to arrive there on a Saturday.

This happy face was on one of the sitting logs around the fire ring.

A perfect sized log to lean our packs on and organize our things.

A view of Sheep lake

And yet another lumpy heart rock at our camp.

We got to camp late and I was trying to take advantage of the late evening sun to dry out our ground cover from the night before.

We finally got our camp all set up at dark. We were too tired to read anything this night.


Relive video of our route:

Garmin stats:
total miles hiked - 10.83
total ascent - 1476 feet
total descent - 1217
Elevation profile -

to be continued.....