It rained all night, but we were warm and cozy under our faithful tarp. Next morning it was still raining in the morning, but warmer, hooray. We did an unheard of thing— ate breakfast in bed!  (The thought of eating a cold, soggy breakfast on the trail was seriously NOT very appealing!)  Then off we went onto the very muddy, puddle-y PCT, pushing through wet huckleberry bushes along the trail. Still no berries, though. I did enjoy looking at the pretty bracken ferns–they are still green, with no sign of fall color yet.

The rain was slowing down a bit when we stopped at a creek to get some water.  Another hiker was there, washing out his oatmeal pot (I guess he didn’t mind eating a cold, soggy trail breakfast??).  We talked with him a bit, and we all agreed that the clouds & rain could go on indefinitely (after all, this IS Washington!), but we were hopeful for some sun when we got closer to Mt. Adams, since right on the other side of the mountain there is warm, dry, eastern Washington.

As we continued on, we passed another PCT hiker, who asked if we were going in to Trout Lake.  He said he was DONE with hiking in the rain.  We said, “No, we hike rain or shine,” and kept on going through the dripping forest all morning till hooray! A ray of sun!

By noon, two wonderful things happened— 1. The best PCT hiker cache I have seen since southern CA (placed by the folks of Trout Lake Abbey) and 2. The sun came out!

Shortly after the cache, we met another hiker who was cooking lunch. Bill had an interesting conversation with him as to whether the “abbey” was Catholic or Buddhist. “I prefer Catholic,” Bill said, “with Buddhists, you get what you deserve. With Catholics, you get what you don’t deserve, because of Jesus. I don’t want to get what I deserve.” “Neither do I!” said the other hiker.

Note from Alexa: Trout Abbey is a Zen meditation centre.

A half hour or so later, we stopped to cook our own lunch, and hung out our stuff to catch some sun–a bit tricky, because even though the sun was out, the trees were still dripping.  But it was so great to be eating a tasty hot lunch while sitting in SUNSHINE.  Since we knew we had a big climb ahead of us up to Mt. Adams, we were glad of a bit of R & R.

On the long uphill, we met a couple of guys on horseback, leading two other horses–they were returning from dropping off trail crew supplies.  And we met several very discouraged, soggy backpackers who were heading down for the trailhead.  Apparently it really poured up on Mt. Adams–they had it pretty tough yesterday.  We could see evidence on the trail itself that yes, no kidding, it really did rain heavily in the last day or so up there.

By later afternoon, we’d reached Mt. Adams, with wonderful alpine scenery, wildflowers galore, green meadows, and snowy white Mt. Adams towering above it all.  At 6:00 pm, even though we hadn’t finished our 25 mile quota, we decided to call it a day when we found a supernice campsite with a view of Mt. Adams.  What a relief to be setting up camp in the sunshine instead of racing to beat the darkness!  We got into our sleeping bags to eat supper, while watching a beautiful gold-orange sunset.  I could seriously get used to this eating in bed routine!  But we are very tired, especially Bill, since he’s still not running at 100% normal, and that was a lot of uphill today! (Worth it, though–so worth it!  This is one of the most beautiful parts of the PCT!)

Walk with Aragorn to Minas Tirith: In Dor-en-Ernil, the lands of Prince Imrahil

Tags: Mt. Adams, Trout Lake Abbey