Author: jenonthetrail

There’s a cabin halfway between Snoqualmie Pass and White Pass. On this leg of our journey, that cabin became a kind of holy grail.

We knew it would rain last week, but we walked out of Snoqualmie Pass anyway. Other hikers stayed in hotels and hostels, drying out from the previous section and nursing arches and ankles. But we couldn’t let a couple of days of rain get in our way.

On Tuesday, the rain hit. At first it was only drizzle. Then it became a downpour. The wind picked up.

In a few stretches, we walked under power lines so high in voltage they buzzed. No trees sheltered us, and the rain blew sideways into our faces. Drops battered my jacket, finding my pitzips and soaking my shirt. It was about that moment when I started thinking about the cabin.

The app we use as a trail guide calls it “Mike Urich Cabin & Stream.” From the app we could see the cabin is at mile 305.6 and open for public use. It has a wood stove and a pit toilet or two out back.

The idea of four walls and a roof were intoxicating. A log cabin! It sounded sturdy. It sounded warm.

Then I opened the comments about the Mike Urich Cabin…

The app allows users to comment on places along the trail. This comes in handy as the trail can change from week to week — seasonal streams dry up and campsites become buggy.

The reviews about the Urich place were all over the map.

“Watch out for the mice,” wrote one thruhiker.

Mice? I scoffed. There are mice everywhere! How bad can they be?

I read on.

“Nice spot to dry out and do some axe-throwing,” wrote Bearman’s Girlfriend.

In the middle of the downpour, I really focused on the “dryout” part of the comment. Then my eye caught on “axe-throwing.” Were we going to be dodging axes?

Then I read the thread about the “locals.”

“Some locals are here,” wrote one hiker.

“Be prepared that party people may be having their party until 3 a.m.,” commented another.

That, presumably, was a dig at the locals because hikers tent to pack it in around 8 or 9 p.m.

Someone named h.r. filled in the details: “Got here on a Saturday night. Some locals were partying HARD. A 45-year-old man got so hammered that he cried all night while he puked all over the cabin floor.”

“Hey [full name redacted] – did you read h.r.’s comment below? Was that you??? HAHA! Enjoy man!” wrote reddog.

Not only was it the kind of place someone might have a drunken epiphany and toss around axes, it was also the kind of place they’d get called out by their full name!

The cabin’s amenities were no better. The cabin’s wood stove, and biggest selling point might or might not have been attached to a clogged chimney that was ready to “burn the place down.”

And the toilets were likely very, very dirty. Someone whose sole interest, besides thruhiking, is to review toilets on the trail commented, “I’m writing this review from one week later and my nostrils still haven’t recovered.”

To be fair, some people were more positive.

“Pit toilet smells bad but it still beats pooping in the rain,” wrote a well-known hiker who passed us on our first day and is now states ahead of us.

Other people even suggested there was a cooler full of Mountain Dew awaiting us.

The cabin was either a magical dream or a horrible nightmare. Jake was taking everything in stride. He hiked the Appalachian Trail, which I understand is littered with shelters. He still has PTSD from the East Coast mice. So he suggested we “consider” camping near the cabin at a tentsite. I said I would “consider” it.

We eked out 16.8 miles in that rain and were still more than 20 miles from that cabin.

We shivered as we set up our tent. We shivered through dinner. And we shivered as we brushed our teeth. We only stopped shivering when we finally bundled ourselves into our quilts.

Our tent is brand new but has some serious shortcomings: Any condensation that collects on its rainfly falls on us in the middle of the night. When we called Big Agnes to complain about it, they calmly explained that it is an issue they’ve “noted.” Their solution involved using the guy lines and making sure the rainfly is completely dry when we pitch the tent — a perfectly reasonable suggestion for the ultralight car camper and a perfectly ridiculous one when you’re thruhiking in Washington state. We diligently followed their instructions, and still it misted all night inside the tent. We awoke in the morning with a layer of that mist on our down sleeping bags and everything else inside the tent. Every scrap of Jake’s clothing was soaked.

“This is the worst rain I’ve had on any trail,” he said, looking miserable.

I looked at him as he zipped his wet rain jacket over his wet fleece jacket.

“We’re going to that cabin!” I said. “Locals or no locals. Stove or no stove.”

Jake agreed.

We continued to shiver as we ate our oatmeal, brushed our teeth, packed up the sipping wet tent, and trudged through those 20 miles. But we made it to the cabin.

The pit toilets were a mess, but at least there was toilet paper, recently replenished by a lovely and totally sober local.

There were only two other people who stayed at the cabin Wednesday night. They went to bed at a reasonable hour.

Mice were maniacal but only woke me up once when they came over to investigate the loft of my down quilt. I squealed. They went away. And they stayed away from our food thanks to an ingenious trick Jake learned on the AT that involved hanging a paper plate between the hooks and our food bags.

And, most importantly, the woodstove worked like a dream. We were able to dry all of our clothes out. And there was no axe-throwing.

***In case you’re wondering, the cabin was built and maintained by a local group of snowmobilers and dedicated to Mike Urich (1888-1957) with this epitaph:

The mountain gods from seats on high

rejoiced to see Mike Urich die

And at his death gave this decree, ‘To all who pass here, know that we

entrust to big Mike Urich’s hands

these camps, these trails, these forest lands

to rule, protect, to love and scan

well as he did while mortal man.

And deal out sentence stern and just

on those who violate his trust.’

Stranger, beware, leave not a fire –

foul not Mike’s camp, rouse not his ire!

“People like you are the reason I come out here!” A trail runner cheered at Jake and me.

We were hiking into Snoqualmie Pass in the rain when we came across a very energetic runner who stopped to ask our trail names.

“We still don’t have them,” we told him.

He was a little disappointed but he stopped to chat with us anyway. He asked us about our favorite sections of the trail so far and told us about a trip he was training for on the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier.

Rain had been showering us that morning and we were soggy and tired. But something about his energy and enthusiasm lifted my mood.

And then came the question:

“Are you hiking to Mexico?”

…

I’ve been nervous about telling people on trail that I’m hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. It is such an audacious declaration like a college freshman declaring she’s getting a PhD. We’ve been officially on trail less than three weeks. I’ve completed less than 10 percent of the trail to date. So when people (day hikers, park rangers, a clerk at the hardware store in Leavenworth) ask if we’re hiking to Mexico, I have generally responded, “I’m trying.” Depending on my resolve at any given moment, “trying” might be paired with a smile or a shrug.

At any given moment I am probably not thinking about the Mexican border but instead our next resupply, the place we plan to camp that night, or on tough days, the next step I’m about to take.

At some point in the last five days (Saturday, to be precise), I crossed from 213.7 miles to 213.8 miles. At that moment, this became the longest I’ve been on an official trail in my life. The John Muir trail is 213.7 miles. I hiked it in 2015 with my friend Maria because it had been on our respective bucket lists and I love Yosemite. I thought the JMT had cured me of long hikes. It turned out to be my gateway drug.

So on Saturday, somewhere overlooking Hyas Lake and the Cle Elum River, somewhere between Stevens Pass and Snoqualmie Pass, when I crossed to 213.8, I decided that I am a thru hiker on this trail.

…

When the trail runner near Snoqualmie asked if we were hiking to Mexico, I proudly told him, “yes!”

And grateful for his energy and enthusiasm, I added, “People like you are the reason we stay on trail.”

The rain suddenly became fatter, somehow. Jake and I had been holed up in the tent for hours.

…

We had stopped in a meadow south of Rock Pass, 14.7 miles from the Canadian border, for lunch at about 1:30 pm. As I squeezed a packet of tuna onto a whole wheat tortilla, I noticed the drizzle becoming incrementally heavier. The temperature had dropped a couple of degrees as we sat down.

“Maybe we should set up the tent,” I said.

“Let’s give it a minute,” Jake said. “It’ll probably die down.”

I continued to scrape the delicious tuna-in-olive-oil packet, making sure every scrap of protein made it onto my tortilla. I was perched on a tree root watching the meadow.

A few days before we had lunched in that meadow on the way to the border. It was stunning: 360 degree views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. Mountains layered upon mountains: ice, snow and always Washington green.

Flowers poked out where there had been snow weeks before: yellow, white, dusty pink, brilliant red, and sun-dapped blue.

Now the drizzle was collecting into drops on their petals.

I kept arranging my tuna wrap, talking with Jake about how we were now really hiking the PCT (really heading south now) all the while the rain was getting thicker. A cold chill had seeped into the air.

…

I started to notice how the temperature drops right before it rains in Washington. In Mexico City, it gets suffocatingly hot. I often feel sweat collecting on my brow. But here, I feel goosebumps. A couple of days before, Jake and I had to trudge, sopping wet, through rain, hail, and sleet, unprotected on a ridge before finally making it to a campsite. That’s when I learned that the rain jacket that had lasted four Mexican rainy seasons no longer protected me against a heavy downpour. My shirt was soaked when I arrived to camp and my hands were so cold, I could barely use them.

…

Back in the meadow I heard it. Like tapping on the door, I knew the sound.

“It’s starting to hail now,” I said. “Let’s set up the tent.”

Jake was ahead of me, already pulling the poles out of his bag. I put down my tuna and rushed to my backpack, pulling out dry sacks to get to the tent. In a flash we had the groundsheet down, but hail was already falling on it. Then the tent. Then the poles. But everything felt as if it were in slow motion. We locked the poles into the tent and started to spread the rain fly over it as I noticed the hail splashing mud on the sides of the tent.

I rushed inside, grabbing the tuna, glad we weren’t walking in that stuff. For a while we sat on the tent floor, refusing to set up our sleeping gear. It won’t be long, we promised each other.

But the temperature kept dropping. I put on more and more clothes. I ate my tortilla and we talked about how it would be nice to have cards. I fished out my kindle and started to read. But the temperature seemed to keep dropping. Jake kept checking his thermometer. Thirty-eight degrees turned into 35, turned into 33, then 32, then 31. And the rain kept falling, splashing against the tent.

We pulled out our sleeping pads, “just to have something more comfortable to sit on.” Then Jake brought out his quilt. Then I brought out my bag with its silk liners.

My bag is only rated 35 degrees. So we’ve carried the liners — just in case. But they’ve already become a staple of the trip as every night has been in the 30s. It’s been barely enough to keep me warm. When the temperature is in the 30s, you can feel the cold air just outside the bag and sometimes it drifts through the seams.

It was starting to waft through in the meadow now as I dozed and woke to the sound of the rain and hail.

But suddenly the sound changed. From a pinprick to a splat, the drops were fatter somehow. I looked at the wall of the tent and noticed the rain had now seemed to a accumulate.

“I think it’s snowing,” I said.

I opened the tent door.

“Yes, it’s snowing out here.”

I walked into a winter wonderland in June. Wet, pudgy flakes splattered around me. It was still light out but hours had passed. Jake and I had abandoned hope of packing up the tent and were planning to stay in that spot for the night.

I ran off to take advantage of the change in precipitation to go to the bathroom and collect water for dinner.

There were streams where I hadn’t noticed them before. They were muddy and silt-ladden, but I didn’t have time to look for better. I plunged my bottle into the freezing water to collect water. With icy hands, I dashed back to the tent, where I found Jake making furtive movements with his trekking poles.

“We have to divert the water,” he called. “It’ll go into the tent.” Using his poles he had already scratched canales into the dirt to draw water around our tent. I helped and then we got into the tent hoping for the best.

We cooked our meal just outside the tent vestibule that night. And watched as the rain stated to ease up slightly around nightfall.

But it was still freezing. I tried to sleep but often drifted in and out of it.

We stayed in the tent until 5:30 the next morning, when the rain finally stopped. Seventeen hours in the tent and only our first week on trail.

There are many things I missed about the Pacific Northwest. Slugs were not on that list. But after visiting Olympic National Park, I’m rethinking that. Slugs are everywhere on the Olympic peninsula — on the coast, on the rocky headlands and in the rainforest.

Slugs were a near constant feature of my childhood. The memories came flooding back. I saw them as soon as I opened the door. Occasionally the crafty creatures even slipped into our house. The acceptable response of course was to shout “Ewwww!” and prance around until someone had removed the offending intruder and its trail of slime.

But those slow-moving mollusks were more than meets the eye. I remember, as a kid, someone in my class ate a slug. That was big news in those days… with more follow up headlines than the Mueller report. Slug slime apparently numbs your tongue. There were health concerns to be addressed. The kid was OK in the end, but far be it from me to ever underestimate the “common” garden slug ever again.

When I was a kid, the most noteworthy slug was a yellow- or beige-hued creature or as we used to call them “banana slugs.” They seemed less common and so usually required more discussion. The Olympic coast and rainforest has these in abundance. Some slugs are fully beige. Others are more yellow. Others are mottled — like the fruit you might use for banana bread.

I realized, after years living in big cities, I really missed slugs. Each time I saw one over the past two weeks, I wanted to squat down and take a moment. They moved so slowly. They seemed so unhurried. They were not bothered by tides or rain or the passage of time. Sometimes they slithered along unhindered and sometimes their slime picked up the needles of trees — how embarrassing! But they were unfazed. While Jake and I bustled from campsite to campsite, slugs seemed like a reminder to take our time and enjoy the Olympics — from the ground on up.

Without a doubt my favorite place to hike in Mexico City is Desierto de los Leones (Desert of the Lions). It’s not a desert and there are (usually) no lions there. It’s a park with natural trails used by walkers, runners and mountain bikers. The high point of the trail is a chapel on a hilltop called San Miguel. At around 12,000 feet, it is no joke. I was first introduced to Desierto de los Leones by a hiking buddy in 2013. Jake discovered the park around the same time. After that first trip, I was hooked. And Jake was too. We both became regulars — even though we didn’t know each other yet. When you live in a sprawling city of million, you need to find natural places to roam.

Roaming was the object of my visits to Desierto. The trails there are barely marked. So if you want to find your way, you need a good sense of direction and a willingness to get lost. I got lost countless times in Desierto. At the same time, whenever I was there, I never felt like I was really “lost.” In Desierto, you can hear the wind rustle the trees. You can watch the evergreens sprout new needles. You can get caught in one of the regular hailstorms. You can sprint down an old creek bed. And you can labor your way along an ancient rock wall.

The park was developed as part of a monastery that dates to the 17th century. It is reportedly named after the big cats that roamed the woods — not lions — but pumas. I’ve never seen a feline on the trail, and hope not too on the PCT.

Today the old monastery is a major draw for families who like to visit it and picnic around it on the weekends. Crumbling hermitages can be found throughout the park and an old rock wall lines some of the trails. Just beyond the parking lots and taco stands, the woods are often peaceful — except when the occasional group of mountain bikers passes, some blaring music out of portable speakers. Sometimes you find them huffing up the trail slower than hikers, which is satisfying.

It’s in this place that Jake and I went on one of our first dates. Jake brought his campstove so we could have a Yorkshire tea break. We climbed to San Miguel and ate sandwiches at the top. Since then, we’ve returned several times. We have found new routes through the park together. And in Desierto, this year, we began the bulk of our training for the PCT. Over several weekends, we added weight to our packs and added mileage. Eventually, we hit around 20 miles on a one-day outing in the park. We’ve done training walks in other places, but, for me, this park will always be the place where our PCT dream started to come to fruition.