Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) Section I - White Pass to Snoqualmie Pass — Friday, Jun. 26, 2009

South Cascades > White Pass/Cowlitz River Valley

This was the only title that remotely applied to this nice loop trip with part of the PCT as one leg of the loop. After descending from Mt Catherine, we seemed to have too much energy left over. By the end of this loop trip there was no energy left over. We began at the start of the Mt Catherine trail; descended the road a couple of hundred feet; then descended the trail down to Twin Lakes. This trail was in adequate shape; muddy here and there; creek on trail here and there; but generally OK. The original plan was to descend to this lake and then go back to the car, but.... We decided to check out the Cold Creek trail which ascends from Twin Lakes up to the Pacific Crest Trail with a decision point at 2 pm, but.... by 2 we had ascended quite a ways on some marginal trail and crossing some questionable blow downs. Also during this ascent, discussions of a loop trip ensued. Unfortunately, we had no map for the area so we did not know exactly how far it was to the PCT nor how much elevation gain - we had general ideas but only to the nearest mile and plus or minus a few hundred vertical feet. For the second time in 2 weeks we had to rely on Bill's innate route finding experience so we kept going up, up, and up. As soon as I was ready to mutiny, the sound of success came down the trail. We had a nice long lunch at the PCT trail junction. Two others were also there and had come in from Windy Pass which turned out to be a very good thing. There were long sections of snow travel from the junction back to Windy Pass and the boot prints were our guides for many short sections. This section of the PCT has mostly north and east facing slopes so there is still a boat load of snow here. Plus, there are many creeks that are full and the snow bridges across them are very suspect right now.