We were at about 5,500 feet elevation in our camp last night, which is high for around here. It was a COLD night! Normally I would be very snug and warm anyway, with my down sleeping bag, but this time, the GROUND itself was very cold. My Ridgerest could not completely insulate me from it. When we go snow camping, we have at least two insulating pads under us so that we don’t feel the cold of the snow–and the ground up here is so cold that it felt like snow under me. Result: I had a hard time getting any sleep, which was a bummer, because we did a lot of tough miles yesterday, didn’t camp till late, and I was very tired. Oh well–we’re closing in on the finish line now!

We ate breakfast at 5:30, in the dark and cold and wind. Our camp was IN the clouds, but fortunately not superwet clouds. When it was barely light, we headed off downhill above Hope Lake, toward the “dangerous” crossing of Spade Creek, which the guidebook describes as “impassable to stock animals.” We’d heard from other hikers that they did have a tough time finding a way to get across this year. In 2005, the crossing was a big mess, but do-able. It was only 2 miles to the creek, but it seemed like forever because of some very rocky, rough trail across talus slopes. The clouds still hid the mountaintops, but we were low enough now that we could see the lake and scenery below us.

We reached Spade Creek, and it was just as I remembered–the “creek” comes steeply down a narrow canyon from Mt. Daniel, then spreads out and divides into 3 smaller creeks. Someone had made log bridges out of scraps for the first two crossings–the third one was a boulder hop. Bill gave me a hand at one of the log crossings. I think the “dangerous” crossing was relatively easy overall because it was so early in the morning, and it didn’t rain much yesterday.

Then we pushed on up and over Deception Pass–not a bad climb, and in forest. The next “project” was the highest pass of the day–Pieper Pass (almost 6,000 feet). The trail was a steady but not steep climb up the mountainside, with nice views, since the clouds were lifting and we even had some brief flashes of sun. Partway up, we heard a loud roaring sound coming from below and behind us, and TWO  jets went tearing by, down BELOW us, twisting and turning their way up the canyon.  Wahoo!  At the top there was a stunning view, with two big lakes down below on the other side of the pass.

Many, many switchbacks took us down, at first on nice dirt trail through the forest, then the last half was all in a huge talus field. I was reduced to hiking at a crawl because of the rocks and by the time we got to the meadows at the bottom of the descent, my feet were very painful. Bill and I were both limping. That’s one of the bummers of being older–we have very little “fat padding” left on the bottoms of our feet. We were very glad it was lunchtime so we could take a break!

Lunch was a freezedried lamb fettucine from Australia!–a gift from our daughter who was there last year. Very tasty! Not only that, but the sun came out for a little while and we were able to get our gear aired and dried. “Now for Trap Pass!” we said, and on rested feet we began the sometimes steep climb diagonally up the mountain. Eventually the diagonal turned into switchbacks to the top of the pass, then more switchbacks down. A long and very comfortable contour followed, heading north (the direction we wanted to go!). The wildflowers along the trail, even the fall asters, are really fading, but other plants are showing fall color, so we still had pretty plants to look at. Mushrooms are popping out of the ground, too, in all colors, including a bright golden yellow!

We climbed up and over another “pass”, and followed the PCT past some smaller pretty lakes (with backpackers at each one) before doing a VERY steep, stiff climb up to a ridge above Josephine Lake. Whew! It was some ascent, and to add to the “fun”, the trail is now extremely MUDDY (from previous rains) and we mostly walked/teetered on the SIDES of the trail rather than in the deep mud of the trail itself. Slooooow going!

However, even with the slow trail, we were still farther ahead than we thought we’d be, and wished we had some way to phone the Manns and let them know we’d be at Steven’s Pass sooner than we’d thought. Late in the afternoon, we started meeting a lot of people headed into the mountains, loaded down with big heavy packs. I stopped a group of girls and asked if I could use their cellphone. They were very happy to oblige, but neither of the two cellphones in the group had coverage. Oh well. I was very grateful for their generosity in letting us at least TRY to call. So we decided to “take it easy” for the rest of the day and camped a bit early at Lake Susan Jane. When I calculated our mileage, I was disappointed, though. We worked so hard and tried our best to go as quickly as possible, but still we only made 21.5 miles. I guess all the rocks and mud and long steep climbs really slowed us down. But at least our AVERAGE mileage is still OK, and we are in no danger of running out of food. This afternoon, I had the crazy idea that we could make it all the way to Steven’s Pass TODAY, and hitch a ride down to the Dinsmore’s. No way. I had to give up on that one at around 4 pm.

This whole section is so beautiful and majestic, Bill and I agreed that if it had as much easy road access as Yosemite, there would be tourists here in droves. It is too bad that only a few hardy backpackers ever get to see such beauty–high, dramatic granite cliffs and mountains, meadowed valleys, many lovely lakes…wow!

It was really getting cold as we made camp, and I put on almost all my layers before crawling into the sleeping bag. Actually, in spite of all the uphills, I was wearing a lot of layers during the DAY today, as well. Each night seems colder than the last, and the ground itself is very cold–and often wet or damp, too. But it’s only 9 more days to Canada!