Day 131: The Alternate Alternate into White Pass

Date: Sun 8/26

Alternate Mileage for Day: 8

PCT Start Mile: NA

PCT End Mile: 2294.9*

PCT Mileage for Day: 0

Total Mileage for Day: 8

Total PCT Mileage: 2294.9

The Highlights: wet hiking, challenging trail, and SOBO HOBO trail magic

*mile that we rejoin the PCT heading north from White Pass tomorrow.

This morning we slept in until 6am, which felt amazing. Just that extra hour, along with waking up with the light – rather than when it’s still dark, made all the difference. This said, the pitter-patter on our tent let us know it was still raining. Ugh.

We packed our bags inside the vestibules, kitted ourselves out in our rain gear, hopped out of the tent, broke it down, and hit the trail. I considered it a good thing that the trail heading north from Lost Lake began with a climb, the best way to warm up quickly.

The alternate continued to challenge. With steep climbs and rocky, rooty descents, the going was slow. We even had a Sierra-esque river crossing. If our feet weren’t already soaked, this may have been more annoying than it was. The river was frigid though. The alternate was definitely slower going than most travel along the PCT.

The skies continued to be foggy and wet, though the rain eventually faded, letting our rain gear dry out a bit.

The alternate was well sign-posted with signs and ribbons.

Maybe should call it “Clearly Lost”

We arrived at Highway 12 around 10:45am, greeted by trail angel signs from SOBO HOBO for hourly trail pick-ups beginning at 11am and complimentary chili at White Pass at noon. What great timing!

We ended up not even having to wait that long, as another van stopped on the road offering us a ride up to White Pass. We hopped in the van with another couple – Sonic and Fish – who we’d been leapfrogging with a bit this morning – and we were off to the pass. The back of the van also had a few other hikers and a couple of unfortunate non-hiker folk that had to smell us. So sorry.

White Pass is a ski area and basically the only amenities at the Pass are a ski lodge, the White Pass Village Condominiums, and the Kracker Barrel gas station/convenient store with a small cafe serving coffees and a few hot food items.

For anything else, you had to hitch into Packwood. We’d sent ourselves a resupply box here so wouldn’t have any need to go into Packwood.

Coming into the ski area, we noticed a field full of tents set up. The tents, we were told by those in the van, belonged to all of the fire fighters that were stationed in the area containing the Miriam Fire, the one we had taken an alternate trail to avoid.

The National Guard was also stationed in the area helping with medical and other support. In the Kracker Barrel we would learn from the clerk that the fire was about 30% contained, and the fire fighters were basically just holding the perimeter, but otherwise letting the wildfire burn.

On such a dreary cold day, I really felt for the fire fighters. Not only was their work difficult, at the end of the day they would come back to a tent in the cold rain. Ugh. What a gig.

Inside the Kracker Barrel, I got a hot chai tea latte and some chips and Shawn and I sat chatting with other hikers. Trash Queen and Penguin were here, along with several others we knew. They were preparing to head back to the trail. I was happy that we had opted to get a room for the night. The weather tomorrow and for the next several days was supposed to be much better and staying the night would allow us to dry our gear, in addition to thawing ourselves out.

Around noon, we wandered up to the condo where Debra was trail angeling with SOBO HOBO, cooking delicious chili for the wet and cold hikers coming in off the trail.

While yesterday they had served up outside, today it was too frigid and damp, so she invited us into the condo unit they’d rented out for a few days. The chili was delicious and hit the spot on a cold day, and Debra was great to talk to, telling us a bit about her life and how she’d discovered SOBO HOBO and become a trail angel.

Well fed and happy, we wandered back to our own condo unit and set to work cleaning and drying gear, showering, starting laundry, and organizing our resupply. All the typical “town” chores. Shawn had specifically booked this unit because it had a full kitchen and a boot dryer, which turned out to be amazing for drying all of our gear, including our tent.

Later in the afternoon, we went back to the Kracker Barrel to eat more food and use WiFi, since service up here is not so great. We talked with more hikers for awhile, bought even more snacks and candy bars for the next section, and eventually returned to our room.

Since we had a full kitchen, naturally we made ourselves an amazing gourmet meal for dinner. Not. We made frozen pizzas. Don’t judge us, we are lazy and in only a couple short weeks we’ll be finished with the trail and won’t be able to eat like garbage disposals anymore.

We spent the remainder of the evening watching Shark Tank reruns and finishing up any gear cleaning/drying/organizing. Tonight we’ll sleep in warm dry beds.

Hopefully the weather will be a bit better when we hit the trail again tomorrow! We actually sleep great on the trail when it’s cold, but adding rain to the mix is always a hassle. Wet gear is the worst. That said, we know the rain will help the many wildfires in Washington right now. Anyway, we get what we get, but hoping for more blue sky days!