Hike and scouting trip for downed trees on the trail.
We knew the weather was going to improve but it did not improve soon enough. It was drizzling and fog covered the upper slopes, as we departed the trailhead. It took us about five hours to get to the summit of Grizzly. There is a clearing at the top that is surrounded by trees, so there would be no summit views even without the fog that engulfed the slopes above 5000'. The bugs at the summit were merciless and so we kept all our rain gear on and pulled out the mosquito netting to cover our heads. We had a quick lunch and headed down. The best way to avoid the bugs was to keep moving. As we headed down the clouds were lifting and there was a view east from along the ridge trail. It was not pleasant wearing rain gear to protect us from the bugs. So we accepted perspiration over bug bites.
This trip is mostly on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), so we encountered (and counted) 15 through-hikers heading south to Mexico and three going north to Canada. There was one hiker finishing a section from Windy to Stevens Pass that could not be traversed last year due to fire closure, and another pair doing a segment of the PCT. One of the hikers told us she was from the Czech Republic but had injured her leg so was not sure she was going beyond Stevens Pass.
Total distance for us was just over 16 miles in 9.5 hours.
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