PCT Section H from Bridge of the Gods to Crest Camp 3-Day Solo Trip, July 31-Aug 2, 2023
Original Release: August 3, 2023
Updated: August 6, 2023 (additional details added to the daily report and added 3 pictures)
In my quest to finally complete section-hiking the Washington portion of the PCT this year, I hiked the first 51 miles of the WA portion from the Bridge of the Gods to Crest Camp at Forest Road 60. Note that over the past several years, I had section-hiked the PCT from the Potato Hill trailhead just south of the Goat Rocks Wilderness up to Hart’s Pass with the majority of them being solo trips (other trips were with my cousin, his daughter and son-in-law). So before this trip, I still had the first 104 miles and the last 30 miles of Washington State remaining.
For this trip, since I was doing a solo trip, I stashed a bike at Crest Camp the day before my hike and rode it back to the Bridge of the Gods trailhead on my last day.
Important Bits and Information
Road and Parking Report:
There really isn’t any parking available at the PCT trailhead on the Washington side along State Route 14. So if you are leaving a car, you will need to start on the south side of the Columbia River at the Bridge of the Gods trailhead. The Bridge of the Gods trailhead is just off of US I-84 at the small but fun little town of Cascade Locks. The main parking lot is near the Tollbooth, but it only has 9 parking spots. I actually found a spot even at 1:00pm on a sunny Sunday when I stopped off to check out the trailhead and the bridge. However, if these spots are taken, there is an alternate brand spanking new parking lot just on the other side of US I-84 off of Moody Street. The PCT goes under I-84 between these two lots. Note that the satellite view on Google Maps just shows a wide gravel shoulder as this alternate lot, but there is now a nice new 30-spot lot (including 2 Disabled spots) located on the north side of Moody St. The typical $5 / day fee, Northwest Forest Parking pass or other Interagency Annual or Lifetime Pass (like an America the Beautiful Pass) is required for either lot.
Note that if you are driving over the bridge, there is a $3 toll for cars and pickups, but it is free for pedestrians and bicycles. Note that there is no sidewalk on the bridge, so you are sharing the bridge with traffic including trucks, which makes the bridge shimmy a bit. Also, this is a grated bridge, so if you are a little queasy of heights, just don’t look down at your feet.
The roads to Crest Camp (WA State Route 14 / Wind River Road / Panther Creek Rd / Forest Road 65 / Forest Road 60) are paved except for the approximate 2-mile section of FR 60 which was in good shape save for some washboardy spots. Note that if you are leaving a car at Crest Camp, the $5 / Day or Northwest Forest Pass or other Interagency Pass is now required there. This fee was just implemented on August 1, 2023 at Crest Camp per a sign I saw there when I stashed my bike on July 30th.
Bug Report:
I experienced very few bugs during the 3 days I was out. Just a few gnats and mosquitoes near Panther Creek camp, but they were not very aggressive and I didn’t get bit at all. I was absolutely shocked since I usually get eaten alive during late July / early August hikes, but I had not been this far south on the PCT. The furthest south I’ve been on the PCT is the Goat Rocks area. However, I did hear from a Southbounder thru-hiker on my 3rd day that the bugs were indeed horrible in the Goat Rocks area (he said that he even had to set up his tent just to eat lunch). Ok, now the world makes more sense. So, I don’t know if the bugs are moving south or north. It would be interesting to see future trail reports for this southern section of the PCT.
Trail and Blowdown Report:
The trail was in pretty good condition. Only a few areas where it sloughed off a bit, but nothing that caused any issues.
There were several blowdowns, but they were either pretty easy step-overs or duck-unders. There were a couple blowdowns about a mile south of Rock Creek camp that took a little more effort, but they still weren’t too difficult.
Water Report:
As noted on the National Geographic PCT maps, PCTA Halfmile water reports and in PCT Guide Books, there is an 11.4 mile dry section between the tributary to Cedar Creek and Rock Creek camp (see my Day 1 report below for details) and an 11 mile dry section between Panther Creek camp and a spring about 2 miles north of the Grassy Knoll Trail junction (see my Day 3 report below). So, make sure you fill up your bottles.
Berry Report:
It is still pretty early for blue/huckleberries, salmon berries or thimbleberries, but I did discover one little location south of the Rock Creek camp where the thimbleberries were already ripe and ready for the picking. Apparently the conditions were perfect at that location for them to ripen, but what do I know, I’m not a thimbleberryologist.
Wildflowers:
Many of the summer wildflowers are at their peaks. Most of these are seen in the lovely clear-cuts that you cross.
Main Trip Report
Even though I had the first 104 miles of the PCT to complete yet in the WA State, I only had time to tackle the first half of this due to obligations I had later in the week. Since this was a solo hike, I was trying to determine the best way to get back to my car from Crest Camp. Either rely on a Trail Angel that may never come by Crest Camp, do a round trip hike like I did last year when I did the PCT - Rainy Pass to Hart’s Pass roundtrip (see my Sept 20-22, 2022 trip report) thus turning a 51-mile hike into a 102-mile hike (Ugh!) or stash my cross bike at Crest Camp and ride it back on the last day. I finally decided on the latter, especially since the ride was going to be mostly downhill.
So, this required me to come down a day early and stash my bike at Crest Camp. I locked it and my helmet to a tree about a 100 feet from the camp and stashed my pump and repair kit in a nearby tree root cavity.
I ended up getting a hotel room the night before my trip and explored the Cascade Locks, OR and Stevenson, WA areas. To limit my pack weight, I wanted to complete these 51 miles in 3 days. I decided to do 19.3 miles the first day since that would get me through the 11.4 mile dry section. I didn’t want to camp in the dry section which would require me to carry much more water or only get in a few miles the first day which would require me to carry more food. This then gave me more reasonable distances of 15.9 and 15.8 miles on Days 2 and 3 and campsite stays with easy water access, Rock Creek and Panther Creek.
The following are details of each day. The daily mileages and elevation gain/loss (rounded to 100 ft.) in the following daily report are from Halfmile’s Pacific Crest Trail Notes and Elevation Profiles on pctmap.net.
Day 1 - July 31, The Bridge of the Gods to Rock Creek Camp, 19.3 miles (+5,000 ft. / -3,800 ft.)
After parking and walking across the bobbing and see-thru bridge, the trail goes along WA State Route 14 for about a quarter mile before it heads into the trees at the big green PCT sign. You will be hiking low in the trees, brushing against multiple pointy blackberry bushes and walking by private properties for quite awhile. After about 4 miles, keep looking toward the Columbia River to the south to spot a peekaboo view of the Bonneville dam and the mist from its spillway. There’s not much more to look at until you get much higher. By the way, if you have time to visit the Bonneville Dam before or after your hike, do plan to fit this in since it’s pretty interesting (and it’s free).
If you are heading north, make sure to fill up your water bottles at the tributary of Cedar Creek at about 8.5 miles from the trailhead (Southbounders, fill up at Rock Creek). Note that this tributary to Cedar Creek is not very big and you may dismiss it at first, which I almost did. So if you just walk by it and then see a big wooden sign (described as an Info Kiosk on the National Geographic PCT map) that states “Welcome to Table Mountain NRCA,” you walked about 3 minutes too far. Note that the sign is tipped over, but you still can’t miss it. So, if you see this sign, turn around and filler-up.
Then, keep your head on a swivel to keep an eye out for Mt. Hood behind you. Soon after after you make a turn towards the east, Mt. Adams will appear in the distance. Then eventually Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainer way in the distance when you turn more north. The mountain views come and go behind ridges and trees. At one section of trail where it heads northwest, you get to see St. Helens, Rainier and Adams all in one view. Get your fill of these mountain views, because you are not going to see any of these on Day 2.
The trail eventually tops off at about 3,500 feet then drops a few hundred feet and then undulates for the next few miles. When the trail first started to descend after about 10 miles of hiking, my right knee started giving me grief and then my left knee a few miles later. I had experienced some knee pain in the past but this was different. I did bring a neoprene brace which kind of helped. I had purchased trekking poles last year mainly for gnarly creek crossings, but since this hike didn’t have any of those, I left them at home. This pretty much continued during the whole trip. Next time I’ll bring the poles. I did pick up a walking stick later which kind of helped with the steeper ups and downs.
The Rock Creek camp area was pretty nice. You first come to a site with spots for at least 3 small-ish tents to the right between the trail and the creek. After crossing the bridge, there’s a larger single tent site right along the trail. Water is easy to get to.
Note that I saw several southbounders and only a few northbounders all day and during the whole trip in fact. I had heard from a SOBO thru-hiker that he had just started seeing NOBOs. It must be the timing since my previous PCT section hikes had been later in August or in September. So, most SOBOs had already gone through WA and many of the NOBOs were in WA during my previous trips.
Day 2 - Aug 1, Rock Creek Camp to Panther Creek Camp, 15.9 miles (+3,200 ft. / -3,800 ft.)
You are in the trees or behind ridges most of the day and don’t get any views of the mountains. Just be content to at least see some wildflowers in the multiple clearcuts that you will cross. Yeah, this isn’t the prettiest section of the PCT. However, there is a nice viewpoint of the Trout Creek valley about 8 or 9 miles from Rock Creek camp. A short spur trail to the viewpoint is at a sharp switchback to the right where it first approaches Trout Creek as shown on the map, however Trout Creek is about 800 feet directly below the viewpoint. After dropping down and crossing Trout Creek, the remaining 5 miles is pretty level. Note that there is one little tricky part about 0.8 mile after crossing Trout Creek where the trail hits a gravel road. The way to go isn’t immediately obvious. I eventually saw a diamond blaze high up on a tree to the left. You follow the road left for about 0.2 miles then take a left on another gravel road and then the PCT sign appears. The Nat Geo map does show this little gravel road joggle if you look closely.
Once you cross Panther Creek Road (Forest Road 65), there are a few free camps between the road and the big steel Panther Creek bridge. If these are taken, you may be able to find a site at the Panther Creek pay campground just north of the PCT ($22 per site). You get there by either walking the road about 0.1 mile north or taking a spur trail from the PCT that is just west of the bridge. I did find a nice spot along the PCT. For curiosity sake, I took the spur trail to the campground to check it out. There was a sign at the end of the spur trail at the campground road stating that PCT hikers can use the restroom in the campground. I ran into the nice campground host who confirmed this and also stated that hikers can also obtain potable water at the campground. I wish the folks who used the site I was staying at along the PCT had used the restroom in lieu of using the campsite as a toilet or at least followed the LNT rules and did their business away from campsites.
I did see a few more mosquitoes at this site, but they seemed kind of tentative on biting me and disappeared in what I imagine was mosquito shame by 7pm.
Day 3 - Aug 2, Panther Creek Camp to Crest Camp, 15.8 miles (+4,300 ft. / -1,800 ft.)
Plus a 27-mile bike ride back to the Bridge of the Gods Trailhead
Fill up your water bottles before you leave Panther Camp since the next reliable water isn’t until you arrive at a spring 11 miles later - details to follow. After crossing the bridge over Panther creek, the trail immediately starts climbing and maintains this accent rate for about 3 miles, levels off for a mile then continues up another 5 miles and tops off at the junction with the Grassy Knoll Trail (Trail #146) and about 10 yards further, the junction with the trail up Big Huckleberry Mtn. The trail up to the summit of Big Huckleberry Mtn. is 0.2 miles and fairly steep. But the summit provides some nice views of Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. It made for a nice lunch spot.
Now back to the spring water source - the spur trail to the spring is about 2 miles north of the Grassy Knoll Trail (#146) / Big Huckleberry Mtn. trail. Note that the spur trail to the spring may be easy to miss if you are blindly trudging along on the PCT. So, in the odd event that nobody is actually hanging out at this spur trail junction, keep an eye out for a flat area with the appearance of campsites in the time it usually takes you to hike 2 miles. The spring spur trail is to the left (west) over a couple of fallen logs and then to the left and downhill of some more obvious campsites. The spring is about 100 feet from the PCT and downhill about 15 feet or so. It looks to be the only water source for miles since every bee and butterfly are also drinking up.
The trail continues on and in 2.3 miles there is a piped spring just to the left of the trail. There’s a white plastic pipe stuck in the steep hillside and the water just magically flows out. It wasn’t flowing very fast when I was there, but it will fill a liter bottle in about a minute. The remainder of the trail to Crest camp is fairly level but it does go through a large lava bed, pretty interesting.
After arriving at Crest Camp, I located my bike and got it ready for the ride down. The first 2 miles on FR 60 was rather washboardy. If you think driving a car over a washboard is bad, it doesn’t compare with biking over it. I believe it knocked all my fillings out. After getting on the paved section, it was much more comfortable and fast since it was mostly downhill. But I still had to watch out for some potholes and places on the pavement that seemed to be sloughing off, which were difficult to see with the mix of light and shadows on the pavement. Watch for these if driving too in case you are stashing a car or bike at Crest Camp. I hit one pretty hard driving up. This forced me to basically ride my brakes on my bike during most of the descent. If I ever do a hike up and bike down again, I think I will stash some biking shorts with the pump/repair kit since there was a bit of chafing going on. Also, I will stash some regular shoes since there was quite a bit of gnashing and grinding of my ankles riding in my hiking boots. If you do decide to bike back down on that last day, I suggest you reserve a hotel room for that night in lieu of driving home that night like I did - you will thank me later.
All in all, it was a pretty good backpack trip. And if you are going solo, the biking option worked pretty well at least for this first 51-mile section. The weather (and forest fires) cooperated and I got to explore different areas of Washington and Oregon including some fun little towns.
Have fun out there,
OMG
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