Day 128
Start: Trout Lake Creek
Finish: Mt. Adams
Daily Mileage: 20.6
PCT Mile: 2247.1
We got through the night with our gear drying a little bit more, but all we had to do was make last night work. My bag being damp dried a little bit, but the down was matted and I was chilled in the morning. We were headed to town with laundry, so that should make everything all better.
There was just a 1,400 foot climb between us and town which we took swiftly. We passed some other hikers which suited me, since I wanted to try to get first spot in line at the laundry.
At the road there was no traffic, but Trout Lake has a shuttle that runs 3 times per day, and we were shortly whisked away to town.
The town of Trout Lake wasn’t much, but it was well set up for hikers with everything we might need. The grocery was a little pricey, but it had everything so it was plenty good enough.
I rushed to the laundry and found the dryer empty, so it met my sleeping bag and in no time it was as fluffy as new. Even better than before the rain. Down does collect moisture over time, so it needs to be dried out every so often even if it doesn’t get doused.
We completed the rest of our town chores, dried our gear in the sun, and ate at the café which took a little while for the food. That didn’t leave us time to shower before the return shuttle to the trail, so we let it be. We got half showered in the rain, and a weekly shower can sometimes be excessive thru-hiking.
We finished packing up just as the shuttle was ready to leave, so we made it barely in time. It was definitely a hurried 3 hour town stop, but we made it work, and it was better than waiting 6 more hours until the next shuttle.
Back on trail we started climbing Mt. Adams. I didn’t fully comprehend this until we entered a burn area and there it was looming above us holding clouds in its crater and glaciers on its sides. The crater side of it never really presented itself to us unobstructed, but we could see it for some time through the trees. Always impressive to see such majestic and destructive mountains.
We took lunch with a view over Mt. St. Helens with its missing top from the eruption in the 80s that removed the highest 1,000 feet of the mountain completely. I’ve never really seen a good side profile of the mountain, and it was quite impressive to see just how much it changed in that eruption. It is almost unfathomable.
We reentered the trees and lost our views of the mountains, but Mt. Adams kept peeking out over meadows and glacial runoff streams. Much more scenic anyways with green life as the backdrop rather than the gray sticks of burned trees, though that could also be fitting for a volcano.
The trail traversed around the west side of the mountain and had great streams, meadows, and forest along the way, with Mt. Adams itself complementing the views from time to time. It was a very scenic walk, and something I would definitely come back to repeat and spend more time on.
Towards the end of the day we did get good clear views of Mt. Rainier which was now surprisingly close, just a few days walk away. That went fast. Great clear sky today which was also amazing. Nice to not have to deal with the smoke all of the time.
We ended our day at a campsite on the edge of a meadow with Mt. Adams looming above and a nearby waterfall. Quite the idyllic spot and a fitting camp before we leave the mountain first thing tomorrow morning.
Our resupply today was a bit too hurried for our tastes, but it worked and we ended up with a great hike around Mt. Adams. It really surprised me with its beauty since it was not a section of trail I had heard about before. But surprises can be good on trail.
