Skykomish to Stehikin...SPECTACULAR
/BACKSTORY PART 1, September 28 - October 3
Spectacularly miserable...
My feet had healed for the most part. They had been covered in raw, open sores when we arrived in Skykomish. This after four days of walking in soggy shoes & sox.
Two nights in a dry hotel room, and a day of rest, and I was ready to hike out that morning on our five day stretch to Stehekin.
Our spirits were high as we set out. It was a beautiful Sunday morning...sunny skies, warm sun & chilly autumn air. We were now headed into the heart of the North Cascades. The weather forecast said that Sunday would be sunny, Monday would be partly cloudy until mid-day, then we would see light sprinkles that evening. We new we were to expect a day or a day and a half of light rain on this section.
Here is how the next 5 and a half days actually played out.
Sunday, September 28
As I said...beautiful.
Monday, September 29
Beautiful, dry morning with warm sun and crisp air.
High clouds by late morning.
As we were finishing our lunch by Lake Sally Ann, the air temperature began to plummet and a wave of dark clouds (think Indiana Jones and opening of the Ark at the end of the movie) began to pour menacingly over the ridge line behind us...time to pack it up and start walking.
Our plan today was to try to do 22 miles. This would take us over two major elevations. The first would be climb of about 1300 ft over 3 miles. The second, would take us up to 6500 feet...a climb of 1500 feet over about 6 miles. By the time we cleared the first climb, we were under our umbrellas & in full rain gear, hiking in what amounted to a cloud.
The rain was falling in earnest now, and visibility was about 50 yards..."light sprinkle" my @ss!
500 feet down from the last elevation, we pitched our tent in the rain at about 6000 feet.
Tuesday, September 30
Snowing! It was F...ing snowing! This was not good. We were already wet.
By the time we packed up and started hiking again, the flakes were coming hard and fast, the size of quarters. The only choice...keep moving...get down to lower elevation.
11am: We sloshed across a bridge over a large creek at the bottom of the canyon. Our shoes were swimming pools by now, and water was beginning to seep through our rain gear.
Standing in a dripping abandoned camp site, we took a break and ate a cold cheerless snack.
To make our goal that day, we would have hike another 16 miles, and climb back up to over 6000 feet in elevation...there would certainly be more snow. Shiny was shivering, and we were both exhausted after only 5 miles of hiking...down hill. Cold felt like it was soaking into my bones.
This's was really, really not good. This was dangerous. This was a formula that was quickly adding up to hypothermia.
Shiny called it. "Let's pitch the tent...let's stop".
She was right...we did.
Wednesday, October 1
I awoke often that night, listening to the rain outside alternate between the soft patter of sprinkling rain and the heavier plop, plop if the trees dripping on our rain fly. I watched hopelessly as, with every "plop", the rain fly bounced like a drum head and loosed a sprinkle from the condensation gathering on the inside.
The weather reports said it was supposed to clear up today. My hope, at this point, dangled precariously from this fragile thought. With every "plop" that hope seemed to become more and more brittle. Dispare was creeping into my psyche at the thought of having to put on wet clothes in a few hours and start hiking again.
We were half way...47 miles from Skykomish and 57 miles from Stehekin. The rain wasn't letting up. This was miserable.
I winced as I pulled on my cold squishy sox. Then came the damp rain pants...and finally my sodden shoes. This process was occurring only by sheer force of will. We had to hike...had to cover at least 21 miles today. We had to make it over the snow and back down to a lower elevation to camp.
This now officially made the list. Gregg's top 5 most miserable hiking experiences...ever.
Whether Shiny and I were overly motivated be the need of the moment, or because we were just hiking hard to keep warm, we climbed our first elevation in record time. By now the clouds were showing signs of breaking up a bit.
We stopped. We actually stopped, despite the cold, to gape at what the clouds were revealing. Our view had been nothing but fog and wet trees for almost two days now. Neither of had any idea of what the landscape looked like beyond 30 or 40 feet.
The heavy, tempestuous, clouds were pealing back to reveal craggy rock faces and soaring peaks dusted with snow..think Eiger and Matterhorn...jaw dropping. spectacularly miserable was turning to...well...simply spectacular.
The window closed. We kept hiking.
Up, up, up... Sprinkling...not sprinkling...snowing...not snowing...cold...wet...
Now hiking over our second climb of the day, I found myself listening to the bizarre sounds my feet were making. It was kind of a squishing, sloshing noise, followed be the familiar "crunch" the rubber sole packing 2 inches of snow under my, now meager, body weight.
Then, each foot slid backwards an inch or two.
By the time we cleared our third and final elevation for the day, the clouds were lifting and beginning to scatter...more "spectacular". We were now walking a ridge line at about 7000 feet, with a breathtaking view of Glacier Peak Wilderness laid out before us. I couldn't take my eyes off of the view. This was as jaw-dropping as anything in the Sierras, and somehow more wild...more raw. Misery or no, I will be back here some day.
Thursday, October 2
We awoke to a dry camp...a gloriously dry, non dripping camp under clear skies.
We would need to cover about 23 miles today to set us up for a "short" nine mile hike into Stehekin tomorrow. Somehow, this seemed like the easiest thing we had to do in days. It turned out to be a beautiful day of hiking under partly cloudy (but dry) skies.
It was about 6pm when we stopped for dinner. The plan was to eat, then keep hiking into he evening in order to make our 23 miles.
Shiny fell...hard...right in front of me...face first into a pile of rocks.
I was bracing my psyche to see a face full of blood and missing teeth. Not so...but she wasn't getting up quickly either, and she was holding her knee. I pulled up her pant leg to reveal a bruised looking crease across her knee cap where it had struck the granit...the whole knee was beginning to swell.
Again...not good. We had another three miles to go that night, and nine in the morning to get to Stehekin.
Friday, October 3
We awoke to clear skies again. Shiny's knee was stiff and sore but she could hike. 9 miles to go...we headed for Stehekin.
Six miles out from town her knee was getting stiff again. Five miles out, she was slowing down. Three miles...limping perceptibly. Two miles...limping badly. The last mile was agony.
She collapsed onto a picnic table bench to wait for the shuttle into Stehekin.
Heartbroken, she said "I think I'm done. I can hardly walk. This might be our last stop."
