Author: Marcus

The weather changed a lot overnight. While last night had been hot and still, this morning was cold and windy, despite the tree cover. We got going quickly.

Apparently, the 35 miles or so from Cascade Locks is one of the more often criticized portions of the Washington PCT, because its route was determined less by terrain and scenery, and more by avoiding private land. It’s supposed to have big climbs and descents without scenery, and some dry stretches.

And, indeed, it did..

I felt quite weak today, and went slow almost all the time. I might be undereating, it might be difficult terrain, I might be getting sick, or I might just be discouraged by how long until the next time I get to see anyone I knew pre-hike (that is, after I reach Canada). I don’t know.

Whatever the case, I went to bed exhausted.

There was much to do in Cascade Locks this morning. I needed to ship two large resupply packages to Northern Washington, plus get food for the current leg of the journey, plus do laundry.

The weather forecast showed a high of 95 today.

The laundromat was a peculiar place. It had no change machine, but the owner made change from his pocket instead, slowly separating the quarters from the pocket lint. He only had 7 quarters for my $2, but that was enough to start the washer. He walked slowly around the store, and told me about the town.

Shopping for supplies was tricky. I needed to put together about 14 days of food, without being too repetitive, from a fairly small grocery, and 10 of those days needed to be shipped.

After packaging and shipping my supplies, it was time for one last meal of town food before entering the wilds of Washington. We chose the Cascade Locks Ale House, across the street from the post office. And who should be inside, but Bill the dairy scientist, who we’d first met way back on Mt. San Jacinto.

We chatted about Oregon, and about the trail to come. It turned out, the Bill and Breanna I’d seen on a list at Olallie Lake was not him — he hadn’t seen Breanna since Mammoth, more than 1000 miles ago.

We procrastinated it into a 2 hour lunch, but eventually had to leave. It was time to enter Washington, and to cross the Bridge of the Gods, past Thunder Island.

Once in Washington, the trail quickly rose up into the mountains, along green ferny tree-covered trails.

We only covered about 13 miles today. Our late start, plus the changing seasons, meant we’d have to night-hike to get any further, so we set up our tents, and went to sleep.

I woke up early, and stayed in bed late. It wasn’t a cold morning or anything, I’m just getting used to late starts. There was no hurry to be anywhere.

Soon enough, the trail reminded me that I was making progress, though.

The trail started with conifer-laden views of Mt. Hood, but quickly descended to lush creek valleys.

The valley was part of the Eagle Creek Alternate, which followed a network of narrow creek valleys. These valleys have creeks in the bottom, and many tiny tributaries flow in across the trail.

I was gathering water from one such tributary, when who should appear but Elizabeth.

She’d also made a mistake counting mileage on the alternate, and was nowhere near as far from Cascade Locks as she thought. So we were hiking together again.

As we progressed along the valleys, everything got steeper.

Then, we reached the main attraction: Tunnel Falls.

The rest of the hike took us across several bridges, sometimes over very deep crevices.

The last stretch paralleled the freeway, which was surprisingly pleasant, considering.

As soon as we got into town, we had dinner at Thunder Mountain Brewing, a highly-rated brewpub on the river.

At last, we went over to the motel, and went to sleep. Altogether, I’d highly recommend the Tunnel Falls area to weekend backpackers — the scenery is terrific, there’s plenty of water, and nice campsites.