I slept very poorly. With the helicopter going overhead and the storms that were supposed to be developing and possibly coming down on me through the night, I just was restless. Besides that my foot was bothering me. I had this theory that if I slept on my left side, it would help it a little bit. So I made myself uncomfortable in the hope that the foot would feel a little bit better. It didn't actually seem to help much. I got some rest but 4:30 AM came really fast. I was the first one to start moving. This was supposed to be the day that all the thunderstorms were coming and I wanted to get to a safe spot before the thunder and lightning. The morning was very nice. The weather was comfortable and there were some clouds in the sky.
The lighting was just really nice for photos and it was good to be up early enough to see the sunrise. This morning was smooth sailing as I really only had a little bit of uphill to be on the ridge. Then it was sort of flat for a little bit and then I started going downhill. I think I camped in the correct spot as up on top of the ridge would have been very exposed. You could see the scars from fires past and once I got off the ridge, it was just a lot of time in the forest. There were a few more spots, but none as protected as the spot I found last night. The ridge felt really long. It seemed like I was on it and going downhill for just an enormous amount of time. I think the number of switchbacks and the fact that I knew that I could take a shortcut if I wanted all kind of played into my mind of this being an unnecessarily long ridge.
The truth was that this ridge could have been bypassed by just going from Pete Lake to Waptus Lake. It would have knocked off about 15 miles. Still, the views from up here were pretty exciting, but given that I had a sore foot in which every step made me question when the feeling would come back to my foot after I was done, made me a little antsy to be off this ridge. Still, I was happier to be going down then up and the people going up had a long climb ahead of them. Finally I made it down to the Waptus River in what seemed like a long amount of time. In reality, it was only about 9:15 and I had already covered 7+ miles. From here, the trail went back into the forest.
I could have chosen to hike right next to the lake as there was a trail that paralleled the PCT right next to the lakeshore. I figured that there might be more mosquitoes there and I was in a hurry to get as far as I could before the thunderstorms kicked in to gear. Besides the trail was not so bad. It was relatively flat and teeming with berries. I had to sort of control myself and only eat a handful every once in a while. Still, my fingers were turning red from the juices of all the berries I was trying to pick while continuing to walk. I paralleled the lake for quite some time before then climbing. It was muggy, hot, and the clouds were starting to build. Still, they did not seem like thunderstorm clouds and eventually it just started to rain.
This was good to avoid the thunderstorms, but the vegetation was rather thick and I was getting a bit wet. I was moving pretty good, though, as the trail climbed quite a bit uphill. After dropping 2500 feet in the morning, I was climbing it all back up to Cathedral Pass. Around 12:30, I came upon Deep Lake. This had been a desired campsite in the planning stages, but there was no way I would be camping at 12:30 in the afternoon. I continued to climb. I had a little less entertainment on this day, as all of my devices were getting low on charge. I had managed them pretty well, but this was now my 7th day out from White Pass and I was keeping as much charge as I could.
The rain seemed to come and go, but the weather never became threatening, so I allowed myself to keep moving. I climbed switchback after switchback getting up to Cathedral Pass. I decided that I really preferred switchbacks to long climbing. The switchback really accomplished the job quicker without as much work. There were numerous switchbacks to get up to Cathedral Pass, but I was still feeling good. Despite my foot being in bad shape, the rest of me was handling it just fine. I eventually topped out at Cathedral Pass about 2 in the afternoon. It felt a lot later because I had already put in 17 miles of hiking on this day. Having not slept well, I was aiming for just another 5 miles to get down to Deception Pass.
Cathedral Pass was one of those places it would be nice to come back to and spend a few days peak bagging. There were many climbable, beautiful peaks here and it was a quiet area being far enough away from Stevens Pass. I didn't do anything more than take my hourly break here and then it was down the trail. After Cathedral Pass, I started to get some salmon berries. That was a good sign and I made sure to eat as many of those as I could. They were a good supplement to my diet of trail mix, beef jerky, dried mango, and protein bars. The trail went down and down until it came to a creek. I saw the word Ford on my map, but usually this meant crossing a log. Maybe there was one that I didn't find, but this time, I had to ford the creek.
It was a healthy crossing too and given the foot pain and numbness, it took a while for me to prepare for and execute. I had to put on the camp sandals to get the job done. Once, I was in, it turned out just fine, but I also stopped to fill water. Even though I had been hiking near water sources all day, it had been quite some time since I filled up. This was kind of the norm for me, though, as I only seemed to have to fill up once a day. I ran into another hiker after this who seemed to not be in a very good mood about having to fill up on water at the lowest spot before his climb. It did not bother me too much as pack weight was not as big of an issue for me as I thought. I am not sure if I would have moved much faster than I already did even if my pack was lighter.
After the creek crossing, it was just a short climb to Deception Pass. It felt like a long time, though, because I was tired. My foot actually felt a bit better at this point and maybe taking it out of the shoe for a while at the creek crossing helped it. When I got up to Deception Pass, it was a dark place in the middle of a forest. There was no question about camping here, though, and there were even some small lakes to get water from. There were also mosquitoes around and eventually another group camped near me. I didn't interact with them at all, though, and instead went through my normal routine of eating dinner, taking notes, brushing teeth, filling water, reading a book, and getting to bed happy to have avoided any issues with thunder and lightning on this last day of July.
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