Trout Lake Creek | Farm Life

So the idea on this hike is to connect the dots between Trout Creek, which I got to at the start of August and Trout Lake where I ended up a few days ago. It is about a 52 mile stretch. We had to delay doing this because over the labor day weekend, Washington basically caught on fire. There were extremely high winds and a lot of people recreating and apparently that resulted in numerous fires. One of the big ones was just south of us in the town of Omak and has the major south bound road (Hwy 97) closed. We had to wait for that to reopen. We travel down to Trout Lake where I need to start and it is about a 7 hour drive. Most of that drive we are in pretty heavy smoke. We can see the devastation from the road as we travel. When we get to Trout Lake and the PCT the smoke is really pretty light and it seems save to everyone to continue. At this point there are no fires to the south which is where I am heading.

At the start of the trail here a trail angel has left bags of oranges. After Martha gives me a blessing, I grab an orange and head out. It is about 3 pm and I want to get to Trout Lake Creek (5 miles) to camp tonight. I will meet the trail angel that left the oranges later in the hike and we will return the favor.

The hike to Trout Lake Creek is an up and down affair. Nothing serious and I arrive in a little after 2 hours. Pass the nice little meadow along the way and I plant that I have not noticed before

Trout Lake Creek is a wonderful campsite. Probably one of the best I have encountered on the PCT that was not a public camp. I have not seen anyone on the trail and there is nobody at the campsite when I get there and I figure I might have the place to myself. I figure wrong as after I am settled and trying to sleep, a couple campers come in. Then a couple more. Then a couple more. In the end we are tent cheek to tent cheek. Below are some images of the camp.