September 10th, 2022 by Jon
We woke on our little ridge, and by 7:15, we had packed and eaten breakfast. The mountains to the west glowed with a gorgeous pink hue. We hiked along a steep ledge with continued amazing views, but the trail became quite washed out and difficult to follow. I’m talking tons of loose dirt, plants that were so overgrown you had to step through them, and blowdowns that took out large sections of trail. Eventually, after much effort, we climbed the ridge and then descended for about a mile to Fire Creek. It was a beautiful, picturesque stream that flowed across smooth white rocks.
There was a nice-looking camping area up on a small rise nearby that we admired as we continued up the trail. From here, we had a few miles to climb to get to the top of the ridge before we would enter the next valley over. The next few miles were very beautiful. We climbed up for a long time through open, exposed grassy areas with lots of wildflowers and perfect little clumps of trees. When we reached the top, we looked back and saw many snow-capped mountains and a large plume of smoke in the distance. The smoke was definitely better this morning, and we were thankful for it.
We switchbacked down the other side of the ridge, entering the upper part of the valley, where snow still lay in steep crevasses on the shady part of the mountainside. A stream ran down through the middle of the valley, and we climbed along the side wall of the valley. We continued down for a long time before leaving the upper valley behind and entering the forest, before switchbacking down for an endless amount of time. The bushes near the end became so thick and overgrown that it was like getting whacked with a small branch with every step. There were times when I was almost walking with my eyes closed to keep from getting smacked in the eyes. The plants were taller than Singsong or me.
Eventually, we came to a nice, long bridge over a madly rushing glacial stream, muddy brown in color from all the silt. We passed this water source and continued a quarter mile before filling up on water for the climb. It was 4.5 miles with about 2,500 feet of elevation gain. The climb was steep, but switchback by switchback, we slowly made our way up. About a third of the way up, we found a small sitting bench on the side of a switchback in the form of a fallen log, so we decided to take a break to eat lunch there. Our break was fairly short, though, because we hadn’t seen our friends all day, who had left a bit before us, and we wanted to finish this climb.
After lunch is when I throw my headphones in, and usually Singsong and I hike apart, preferring to spend the morning together instead. I cruised my way up the mountain, and without any blowdowns for the most part, the miles came pretty easily. The whole climb was through the trees, but when I got to the top, the views opened up as we made our way around the rim of a large bowl. The views from here were incredible. We could see a huge glacier above us with many snowmelt streams cascading down a large rock field. We stopped at one and filled water there. As we did, we saw a large brown animal down below that we are pretty sure was a brown bear. We continued around the bowl, rounded the mountain, and crossed over the ridge to begin a climb down into a canyon with another river at the bottom.
The climb down was brutal. There were many blow-down trees with very long trails cut through to get around them. Many of the trees that had fallen were so big that I don’t think Singsong and I together could have gotten our arms around them. The miles came somewhat slowly, but soon we made it down the steepest part and then had a more gentle descent along the river we could now hear off to the side of the trail. I caught up to Missile, and we hiked together for a while before we passed a tent site where I said I would wait for Singsong. He told me that Biscuit and Wilco were headed for a tent site 2.5 miles away, so he would keep walking and meet us there.
Singsong caught up about 3 minutes later, and we hiked the last bit of trail together. We passed a few streams and more blowdown trees before finally arriving at the tent site with our friends. We set up camp, had dinner, laughed, had more stories from the trail, and then headed to bed. Tomorrow is our last full day on trail, and it’s kind of mind-boggling. But we plan to embrace the end of this journey, and we’re excited to finish.
