North Fork Sauk Trail to Pacific Crest Trail #60-63

Our Pacific Crest Trail trip......I was starting to get nervous and anxious about it around 4 weeks before we were to depart. This is in part because I felt under prepared, scared that I might not be able to do that many miles (100) or days (13), and petrified of the blisters I knew I was going to get, the trail closers from the fires, and the air quality due to the fires, also played a factor in how I felt.
  Then the weekend came and my friend L who we were supposed to meet at the junction of the North fork Sauk trail and the PCT (she planned this whole thing) had a family emergency and was not able to come along with us. I thought that B and I would cancel as well. But he insisted that we go. On Tuesday when we were supposed to be leaving I tried my hardest to convince him that we shouldn't be goin on this adventure. After much discussion and I mean lots of discussion, we loaded up the car with our gear, the kids, my in-laws, us and proceeded to the trail head parking lot.
B was getting more and more excited the closer we came to the trail, and I felt more and more like vomiting due to nerves. I get nerves really easily and about everything that is new or huge.
He parked the car and we unloaded our gear.

The kids helped us get ready to go. You can tell how happy and excited B was to be going on this trip in the picture below.

Finishing putting on my pack. Our eldest took these pictures that is why he isn't in them.

 We said our goodbyes, and I dillydallied as long as possible saying goodbye to the kids. Which I was doing on purpose so we wouldn't leave. We were on a time schedule though because B wanted to reach the Macinaw Shelter before dark. He told me that the trail was flat and easy, now when I hear flat, I think flat as a pancake and no elevation gain. Well that was wrong, the trail has some moderate elevation gain, ( me and my bad attitude thought it was harder at the time.) The trail has no bushes along the side of it because you are hiking through old growth forest and you can hear the river the whole time but never see the river.
Around 5 or 6 miles we reached the Macinaw Shelter, the plan was for us to sleep in it, but as you can see in the picture below it is no longer standing, so we set up camp. B made food and I set up the tent and bedding. I hate cooking so we have always done it this way when we camp. We then went down to the river and collected water. I was extremely tired after eating, too the point where I watched a mouse try stealing our food without freaking out. Which any of my family members or friends can tell you, that is highly unlike me. I freak out when I see them....screaming and running away, or can't even move or breathe when they get close to me. B chased it off and we went to bed. While in the tent I started crying and had this massive amount of anxiety.

I finally felt better and we went to sleep, the next morning we were up early, B made breakfast while I packed up the sleeping gear and clothes and tent. We then loaded everything in our backpacks and were off.  The views weren't that good as you can see in the picture below, the grey is all smoke.

This is me having an anxiety attack and crying for an hour. B was very patient and we tried again to pin point what the main cause was. We never did pin point one thing, but we did agree that I would be the leader, because I figured out that I didn't like B in front of me because he is so much faster than I am. I eventually did stop crying and ate some food  and we started on our way up the Pacific Crest Trail.

B figuring out where our next camp was going to be and how far we had to go.

Finally some clearing and views!

This is Red Pass, we actually had some service so B called his folks and we talked to the kids for a bit. That helped calm my anxiety a little.

Once we were over Red Pass our camping site was Glacier Peak Meadows, which was not too far down, but we were feeling pretty good and decided to continue on. We came upon the perfect campsite near a creek with some wild blueberries It was a beautiful spot. I was in the lead, when B all of a sudden says...."Bear, Bear, Bear!" I was just getting ready to cross the creek when he said that. If he had not seen the bear, that decided to rise up, I would have walked right into it! The bear then decided that it wanted to walk towards us, as we backed up, I told B, "I am going to have a heart attack, I am going to have a heart attack."  B tells the Bear, "you don't want to do that bear." The bear then turns around and heads up hill from us. Needless to say, we had an adrenaline rush and made the decision that we weren't going to camp there incase the bear decided to come back for our food. So on we went to arrive upon this campsite, Bekos Creek. We set up camp, hung up our food and went down to the river to soak our feet.

Soaking sore achy feet never felt so good, even if the water made your feet numb from how cold it was.

We then took a nap in the sun on this bridge.

The following morning we were up early again and proceeded on. One section of the trail was through a wetland and the shrubbery was shoulder height. My shoes were soaked from going through the mud and streams. It finally cleared a little and we were able to get the pictures below.

Then the clouds rolled in again.

Getting to the top of this pass took forever! Every time you thought you were there you had to climb another switchback. It was a stunning view though! The campsite was down a ways behind the ground on the left of the picture. You can also see the trail in the picture. While we were resting up there, we met a guy from Australia that was doing the whole trail and was averaging 35+ miles a day. One thing that I noticed was that any of the through hikers that did 30+ miles a day, had the smallest backpack and carried the least amount of gear and food. After talking for a while he proceed on and shortly after we followed.

Finally made it to Mica Lake! We were the only ones there, we were dirty so we went skinny dipping. It was so cold but felt so good. We also "washed" our clothes. The wind picked up and we had to put rocks on the clothes and tie the tent down so they wouldn't blow away. Later that night

our neighbors arrived and another girl named Maddie that stayed up above us. 

Packing up camp. As far as clothing styles, anything goes when you are hiking the PCT. Going down the trail to the river we saw a wolverine. It was very fast and rather far away from us but it was so cool to actually see one in the wild!

Found this sign and thought it was a cool quote.

There were also signs on random trees that said Pacific Crest Trail. Each one we came upon we tapped with out trekking pole for luck.

"Hey Syd how do you feel?"    Me: "Sore and miserable."

Feeling strong like always. We called it a day and stayed near Vista Creek. We were up early again the next morning and hiked to the Suiattle River.

This part of the trail was amazing and flat! The trees were huge, which you can't tell in the pictures.

I felt great going through this section, we hauled going down hill and on the flat.

This section of trail was so amazing! No roots and so so flat!

Finally made it to Suiattle River. It was flowing so fast and was really really loud.

This bridge was really cool and so long, the curve is the middle of the bridge when crossing.

I was still feeling pretty good in this picture. However it wasn't very long after that I hit my wall.

This is the look of pure exhaustion, I hit my wall about three quarters of the way through our day of hiking. The plan was to go to Image Lake and camp there depending on how we felt. When we hit the junction for Image Lake I knew that I couldn't handle any more elevation gain than what we were doing. Plus my blisters were so bad I could barely walk. B on the other hand felt pretty dang good. I barely made it to camp, after we ate some food and got water it started to rain, so we called it a day. Our camp spot was not a maintained site and it was across from the trail that had been closed due to the fires.

We started early the next morning and decided that Lyman Lake was going to be our goal. However  rain started shortly after.  Arriving at Lyman Lake we decided that we felt pretty good and wanted to keep going. We hiked as fast as possible and the 57 switchbacks were a lot going down hill, but still managed to get pictures of a boulder that looked fun to climb/boulder.

 Lyman lake was beautiful, but we continued on, however the trail to get to Holden was crazy. It was some of the sketchiest trail I have been on, it was foggy and raining too. I forget when we came to another trail closer and it informed us that Holden was only 13 miles away. I knew and wanted to get to Holden. I was ready to be done.  

I cried when we came to this sign saying that Holden was 3/4 of a mile away still.

We were soaked from our waists down. I had puddles in my shoes.

All of the deer we saw on our whole trip was in Holden Village.

Our room for the night, $99 per night per person. However it did include all meals, showers, a sauna, and a hot tub (which was broke.) We did go to the library and checked out a couple of books to read and check our facebooks to let people know we were safe. You also had to gather and lay out on the bed the clean sheets, blankets and towels when you checked out.

The Chapel at the village. It is beautiful and so peaceful inside. The picture doesn't even begin to show how beautiful it is.

After exploring the Village we caught the bus to Lucerne so we could take the Lady of the Lake to Stehekin,

We met some great people on our trip, like Maddie in the picture below. Most of the people we met along the way were very kind and happy.

In all B and I did 88 miles in 5.5 days with about 20,000 feet elevation gain and loss, and this was second, yes, my second overnight backpacking trip.

Until next time!