September 2:Glacier Peak

We woke up to clear skies and were completely surprised to find it this way; we had been expecting a day of rain, so we saw this as a gift. Since we had walked through most of Washington in rain and clouds, I was starting to understand why some people would walk his far and just quit so close to the end. I knew I would never quit, but I could see why someone might do it. Washington has some of the most scenic terrain on the whole trail, but if it rains everyday, all day, it sucks. Many hikers end up hating Washinton because of this. But today we had blue skies when we weren't expecting it, and we were all smiles. I wasn't ready to take this good weather for granted; I was thanking God every 10 steps for giving us some nice hiking weather!

Just by looking at the data book, we knew today would be a hard day- a day of climbing, as Mark announced before we left, to the dismay of Flippy.

It started with a 2200 ft climb up from Kennedy Creek, passed Fire Creek and on to Fire Creek Pass. We had some incredible view of Glacier Peak, and couldn't resist stopping to take pictures. Of all days to have clear skies, this was the day! Along the way Mark found a fishing rod in a nice wool casing, that will come back into he picture later. We also saw another bear, taking the total count up to 5.

We descended down to Milk Creek, where we had heard there were a couple sections of trail washed out. Luckily it washed out on switchbacks, so all we hd to do was scramble down 20 ft, and we were back on the trail. Enough hikers had gone before us, so there was a rough trail already in place. I am always amazed at the power of water; it's hard for me to fathom that a rain storm (or maybe several) had simply washed out a section of the mountainside. But it had! As we descended, we could look across the canyon and see the numerous switchbacks cut into the side of the mountain, which would be our climb out of the Milk Creek drainage.

It took some maneuvering, but we managed to climb around/under/over the massive downed tree and boulders to get to the log crossing over Milk Creek. We crossed easily and yelled to Flippy and Cruisin' that it was no problem, but they were having too good of a time building their own "bridge" across. The creek wasn't that wide, and they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, tossing rocks into the creek so they could rock-hop across. We were relaxing in a break, and we would hear them toss a rock (splash!) and then they would bust into laughter. You have to give them credit. They eventually got enough to stay in place and they made it across!

The climb out of Milk Creek was hard. The elevation gain wasn't the main factor, although it was over 1000 ft; Because this trail wasn't used much in the last 5 years, trail maintenance had dropped off significantly, and many parts were incredibly overgrown. We were climbing up through bushes that were often up to our waist or shoulders. To top it off, there were tons of rocks you had to watch out for and the trail was narrow as well. If you weren't careful, you could twist an ankle. We were super thankful to be done with that climb.

Eventually we began our descent to Vista Creek, where we would make our camp for the night. This was rumored to be filled with blowdowns (downed trees over the trail). We even met a couple guys going south that said they did 4 miles in 5 hours! That is some slow walkin'. They really didn't start until the last 1/2 mile to camp; we would save the worst of it for the morning.

Cruisin' wanted to build a campfire, so we let him go to town on that, and enjoyed a warm, glowing fire as we ate our dinner and got ready to sleep. We had only done 20 miles today, but had climbed well over 5000 ft. Our energy went verticle and not horizontal today. We even saw some stars before we went to sleep, which we hadn't seen in a long time. This nice weather was reminding us how much fun hiking can really be!

Total Miles:2543:2
Miles Today:20.0
Camp 128:Mid-Blowdown Camp and Campfire

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