September 9th, 2022 by Jon
When we got up, it actually wasn’t too cold. We were up on a hill overlooking the lake, and all the cold air must have sat down in there. We did smell a good amount of smoke, though. Those fires we saw yesterday had continued burning through the night, and I guess the wind shifted and filled the valley we were in with smoke. We got up, and the sun was a hazy yellow space in the sky, its light distorted from the smoke. We packed up and hit the trail just before 7:30.
We walked along the side of the mountains for a while before climbing a small ridge and crossing into Glacier Peak Wilderness. Then we continued downhill through a small saddle and stopped for a break near a stream. We were planning to fill up here, but the stream was barely flowing. We all seemed to have had enough, so we continued another 2ish miles and came to a different stream halfway up the uphill after we crossed the saddle and started hiking up a different mountain. We were in the shade here, and without the sunlight to warm us, it was incredibly cold. Even in direct sunlight, lately it feels like the only hot part of the day is 10-3. Otherwise, it’s actually been somewhat cool.
We took a break at that cold stream, eating our bars and blowing on our hands to keep our fingers from freezing. We continued climbing for a few miles, ridge-walking for a bit, climbing more, then ridge-walking again, before one last climb to the top. We took a break there on a Lion King-esque rocky area that would have had amazing views, but unfortunately, we were pretty shocked by the smoke. We picked a campsite with a stream 3.5 miles away and decided to meet there for lunch.
The trail would wind its way down the mountain we were on before crossing over a pass and entering a gorgeous valley. It was basically all rocks and a few patches of snow; the trees were only high up on the side walls. Glacier Peak loomed in the distance, and we got to look at it through the haze the entire time we descended. We blasted down through the valley, quickly descending as we passed a few streams and pretty camping spots with amazing views. We dropped down some more and all of a sudden entered the forest again. We could hear a stream in a small gully to our left, and continued hiking before coming to the point where the trail crossed it. We ate lunch under some trees right next to the stream and enjoyed a leisurely stay there.
After lunch, we continued climbing down through the valley and making our way towards Kennedy Creek, a somewhat notorious glacial stream crossing. The trail was in the woods for a long time, with numerous blowdown trees. These weren’t regular trees, but instead massive old-growth trees. The going was slow as we made our way to the bottom. The last mile to the creek had so many blowdowns, a horribly overgrown trail from brush, and many streams that came from under the plants, making for a very muddy trail. Eventually, we made it to the creek, and after a bit of searching up and down, we found the least bad spot to cross the raging, brown, silty water. There was a log, about 10 feet long, that crossed the water, and about 2 feet of it had water going over the log. We stepped carefully across, getting our feet kinda wet in the spot where the water level was over the log, but made it across safely.
We took a break there for a moment before climbing a steep ridge out of the creek area. After 2.5 miles, we made it to another stream, but the tent sites here weren’t great, so we decided to push another mile and some change to the next one. We were halfway around a bowl, tall rocky peaks surrounding us in a semi-circle, when we came to another stream and found a great flat spot to pitch our tents on top of a rock. We had spectacular views of the smoke-filled valley below and the relatively clear skies above. For the first time today, we actually had blue skies.
We collected very cold water from the nearby stream, had a long dinner hour, and watched the sunset afterward. Smoke is pretty awful, but I will say it makes for some amazing sunrises and sunsets. After the sun went down, it got cold, so we hit the hay and fell asleep with the creek as white noise in the background.
