WHAT WE DID PCT 28 mile stretch, 2 1/2 days (W 10am - F 4:00pm) Followed the wta's suggested four day plan but succeeded in completing it early with two overnights, averaging about 9 miles per day (9:00-5:00ish.) THINGS WE SAW Lenticular cloud. Lots of animal tracks, butterflies, dragonflies, wildflowers, intermittent snow melting and a handful of obstacles. Lots of opportunities to fill up for water. WHEN &WHERE Day 1&2 (Wednesday midday-Thursday midday): A couple of hikers around Snow Lake, one horseman around Deer Lake. Obstacles consisted of having patience and reasoning with immediate unmarked paths, bugs galore, & fallen trees that blocked the path and crossing Bumping River. Animals around near Fish/Crag Lake (deer, coyotes howling, owls hooting) LESSON LEARNED: Any direction is better than no direction. All paths lead to the same path; YOU choose your destiny. The journey is the destination! Day 2 (Thursday afternoon -Friday afternoon): Runners exercising early misty morning around Two Lakes. Obstacles consisted of endurance tests with more unmarked paths crossing each other, hiking on fragments of rocks stretching a mile or two at a time while traveling up the mountains with the sun on our backs, passing over and through rock slides with trails that were only approx. a foot and a trekking pole wide, crossing the Bumping River and stepping up more than 20+ PCT wood steps to finally reach the crossroads of Tipsou Lake and Chinook Pass. Marmot family was active, curious and photogenic, hanging out around 5-10 miles from the end of Chinook Pass, past rock slide and babbling brook where we stopped for water. (We found them about 2-4:00 sunbathing & gallivanting through the rock slide.) LESSON LEARNED: Important to breathe. Coffee on the mountain in early morning rocks. (All pun intended.) Hiking the PCT cleanses your soul and lightens your load (figuratively and literally.) The journey is the destination, but having a destination keeps you sane.

Snowfields at the end of May made locating the trail difficult once the GPS unit died. Pulled out a good old-fashioned contour map and compass and navigated our way through. Aside from the snow encountered this was a great three-day, two-night backpacking trip. Should have gone better prepared with gaiters and cramp-ons. Stayed the first night at Snow Lake and second night where the American River trail and PCT converged.

White Pass to Chinook Pass, hoping to find not too much snow in this low snow year. However, we ran into snow at Sand Lake, and had about 50% snow from there until we started up to the Laughingwater Creek junction. Beyond that point, there was complete snow coverage, no signs indicating trail junctions visible, and no trail visible. We were also into an area above 1 lake and 2 lakes that had pretty bad cliff exposure, so we opted to go down the Laughingwater trail. We lost it about 1/4 mile in under lots of snow, and wandered around following elk trails and our compass for a couple hours, and finally found the trail again just above 3 lakes. There were hardly any flowers out yet, the mist left us with no views for the 3 days, however, we did see what looked like a healthy marmot family of 7 individuals above Crag Lake. Signage in this area on the PCT is not good, many missing signs and only 2 PCT diamond shaped reflectors on the 18 miles we covered. Still, we had fun being out and camping, maybe we'll try again in a few weeks.

Hiked Section I.1 of the PCT (White Pass to Chinook Pass) as a three day/two night backpack. Started at White pass and headed north. The first day was beautiful - dozens of little lakes hidden through the trees just off the trail and almost no major elevation gain. There were a couple of trees across the trail on this day, but only one was any challenge to navigate. Stayed the night at Snow Lake, which was beautiful. The campsite is fairly large, with three distinct spots for fires (allowed in this section of the PCT outside of Mt. Rainier National Park). It's an easy distance to the lake for water as well, and we didn't have any problems with mosquitoes. Someone had left a circular grill grate at the campsite, which we made use of briefly to make pancakes for breakfast. The second day we headed up to Two Lakes. This was a decent elevation gain day, but it is spread fairly equally across a distance so it never seemed too strenuous, which was a blessing as we were starting to really feel our packs that day! We were glad for a bit of a later start as well as we ended up on the exposed face of the mountain after it had passed into shade. Two Lake is not viewable from the trail above - we were a little concerned that a somewhat marshy/dried out area below was what was left of the lake, but that isn't it. It is a bit of a hike down to the lake for water though so fill up before you get there! We stayed at the campsite right off the PCT, which we shared with three thru-hikers for the evening. There was another couple that stayed down by the lake, where there are even more campsites. The last day we headed all the way to Chinook Pass. The views really impress on this section of the trail. After a short climb in the morning, Mt. Rainier came into full view, and stayed that way for a good hour and a half of hiking. Dewey Lake is a real jewel, especially when viewed from above! Getting above it requires the first real bit of elevation gain on the trail, but it is short and the views are worth it! Finally came over into the Chinook Pass side and walked over the Mount Rainier National Park bridge over the highway, and down to the parking lot. We parked a car at either end, but were very glad we started on Thursday, as the parking was completely full and overflowing down the road quite a ways in both directions when we came out on Saturday afternoon. Overall, about ten miles each day resulted in a lovely hike, with great weather. There are a few huckleberries still left on the bushes, and in a week or two they and the vine maples will be in full fall color. Mosquitoes aren't too bad, and will probably continue to get better, and the trail is in fantastic shape. Highly recommend as a first multi-night backpack due to the lack of elevation gain and the pleasure of nice established campsites that allow fire!