PCT: Snoqualmie Pass Northbound – Days 3-4

Day 3

We were up before sunrise and took our time enjoying coffee on the lakeshore. Once we left camp, it was the typical long climb to start the day. Unlike the last 2 days, my knee pain kicked in from the start. Uphills hurt like yesterday’s downhills, and downhills turned into excruciating slow descents. On top of this, Matt had excerpts from a guidebook, which described some of the upcoming descents as “knee jarring,” as if my knee wasn’t already jarred. We got a good laugh out of it, but also realized we should probably find an earlier exit. We were still about 30 miles from Stevens Pass and closer to 20 miles from a shorter route to the highway. That route, of course, was described as a rocky, root covered, poorly engineered trail with steep descents. We instead found an exit on the Deception Pass Trail to Hyas Lake.

We turned off of the PCT still having completed 50 miles of the 70-mile stretch, and a couple miles further found a great campsite along Hyas Lake. Angela and Jessi would be picking us up from a nearby trailhead tomorrow. I sat around at camp the rest of the afternoon while Matt took the opportunity to climb up to Tuck Lake.

Day 4

Today was a quick couple mile hike to a trailhead. We were there hours before our ride and did the only thing reasonable, found a picnic table, and made more coffee. We were hoping to hitch part of the way out to shorten Angela and Jessi’s drive, but out of the 100+ cars, no one was leaving early. We hiked about 4 miles along the road out, more to kill time than anything, before the wives showed up. We all went out to lunch together before Matt and Jessi headed home, and we headed out for a week in Olympic National Park.

P.S.

I had my knee checked out after getting home. It’s fine, and I just had a very aggravated IT band. I’m doing some at home PT and will be back hiking soon. I ended up covering another 260 PCT miles over the last 6 weeks, leaving me another 860 to work through in the coming years.