So we made it from Tucson to Phoenix to Seattle. Saw a couple baseball games and now it is time to do the Snoqualmie to Stevens Pass section. As you can see from picture bellow it is 74 miles and there really is no option for pickup. Truly a wilderness journey. I was thinking it would take me 5 days but I took supplies for 7 days to be safe. Good thing I did. It ends up taking me 8 days.
The actual trailhead is about .2 of a mile up the trail and they have a sign about Avalanche awareness and preparation. I can answer all their questions with a NO but I’m also not concerned about an avalanche. There is not a large amount of snow this time of year.
About 10 minutes into the hike I get to my first stream. I am hoping for many more. Nice to be out of the desert and not have to worry about carrying pounds of water.
Met a local along the way and I told him I was trying to get to Ridge Lake today and he indicated there were 3 parts to that journey. The first part was the the nice forest path we were currently on, the second part was the very rocky and very difficult glissades and he pointed up the mountain, the third part was the less steep but no less rocky trail to Ridge Lake.
After about a hour and half I get to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness within the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. The Alpine Lakes Wilderness is also in the Wenatchee National Forest.
President Ford signed the Alpine Lakes Area Management Act into law on the afternoon of July 12, 1976, reportedly saying “anywhere so beautiful should be preserved.”
These darn rocks move. They don’t just sit there and look pretty. You step on them, they wiggle, they slide.
About 5:30 pm I get to the Kendall Catwalk. It is a pretty short walk where some people want to cling to the mountain for fear of falling off. Actually the trail right here is wider than most of the other trail but the sheer fall on one side and the sheer mountain on the other can make it look intimidating. At least the path was not all that rocky here. Now you add those slippery moving rocks to the trail here and you might have something.
At about 6 o’clock at night I get to Ridge Lake and set up camp. 7 miles in 6 hours. Most of it was ascending and I actually suck at ascending.
