White Pass to Chinook Pass — Sunday, Aug. 6, 2017

This was my first multi-day backpacking trip. I know understand how to deal with blisters...and wear the right socks. Anyways, it was a really awesome hike/experience! My boyfriend and I left from White Pass around 10:30am on Sunday morning after leaving one car at Chinook Pass. We hiked a pretty mellow 10ish miles to Snow Lake and rolled in around 4pm. We tried to fish but had no luck. The next morning we left around 10am and arrived at Fish Lake around 12 where we relaxed and fished some. Yet again we didn't catch anything, probably because it was noon! Around 12:45 we started our climb! Which was tough for my boyfriend, who doesn't have as much hiking experience as me. We took quite a few breaks for him to catch his breath. The smoke was awful so once we made it to the top our views weren't as nice as we had hoped. We took a longer break at the top and then continued on to American Lake which we arrived at around 6:30. I'm not entirely positive on the distance but I believe it was around 12-13 miles to American Lake from Snow Lake. Both of us were pretty tired and I had some blisters (ugh! bad sock choices for my overly sweaty feet) so we just sat up camp, had some dinner, took a quick dip in the lake to rinse off and then hit the hay. As we were laying in the tent we did hear gun shots in the distance that kept echoing of the mountains around us. It was annoying and made me somewhat nervous. Despite being pretty tired and the gunshots, it was probably my favorite lake of the entire hike. It was so beautiful and we had the lake to ourselves. I woke up around 7 and watched ducks dive for fish and listened to the water flow into the lake and then out through the creek near our campsite. It was wonderful! We finally left around 10am and finally got some great views of Rainier! The hike to Dewey Lake was pretty mellow. We got there around 12 and took a little break, got some water and then started up the hill. It didn't seem hard but my already tired boyfriend didn't agree. We passed quite a few hikers but we arrived at the car at Chinook Pass around 1:30! We were both pretty excited to have completed the trip and our longest backpacking trip! It took us awhile to get to White Pass because of road construction which was frustrating. From a beginner backpacker's perspective this was a really awesome learning experience for me! I'm looking forward to future trips.