Start point
Panther Creek Campground, mile 2183.1
End point
Blue Lake, mile 2206.3
Miles hiked
23.2
Wilderness area
Gifford Pinchot National Forest
Wind River Experimental Forest
People I met
Lancelot
The day on trail
Cowboy camping is the best. No tent to pack up, all the fresh air, yeah, I love it. And camping alone rocks.
Some breakfast: oatmeal I’m sick of. And I was ready to go. Because I cowboy camped it, it was just a breeze to pack up. I’m so picky about how I pack my tent because I don’t want it to fall apart like it was with that girl I met when I hiked with Peenz.
Hey. Horses could slip here.
Washington trails and terrain are super special and so pretty. Little creeks dot the area.
And the views are just so sumptuous.
I’m still getting views of Mt Hood. I love it.
I came to the Wind River Experimental Forest. What the experiment is, I’ve no idea. But the name is intriguing.
Along with some a mysterious blaze.
Okay. I’ll look at the next tree.
Ah shucks. 🙃
But what exactly is it I’m doing?
Right! I’M ON THE PCT! I celebrate that at every opportunity.
And oh my goodness this section had mushrooms galore. I love watching them push up out of the ground. It reminds me of the baby dinosaurs pushing out of the eggs in Jurassic Park. Only real. And cuter. And some of them will still kill you.
And then I turned a corner and saw Mt Adams.
Holy smokes, I am really in Washington. I can’t believe it.
And there are so many mushrooms here.
I found a really cool little rock cave.
And some of these stunning flowers growing near water.
There was a classic PCT emblem being swallowed up by a tree.
The hiking today just felt really good. Some climbs, some drops, and nothing too crazy. It’s just a vibe and I get to drink it up.
I passed by a small pond surrounded by some trees. Appropriately named Sheep Lake. Well, not appropriately, because it’s a pond. And there were no sheep.
After contemplating how glad I was not to need water from this “lake,” mostly because I would definitely get my feet wet from squelching mud, I moved on and saw more mushrooms.
This brought me to Green Lake.
This was slightly more lake-esque and had fair greenery. So I won’t fight the name. But Sheep Lake needs a new name.
I was able to find a tiny little green frog. He was so dang cute.
And then a trail marker.
And another trail marker came up shortly after that.
Shortly after that I came upon a bunch more mushrooms.
Sadly they were way too far gone to harvest, but spotting them is always fun.
I couldn’t believe the layers of some of these views. It was just mountains on mountains on mountains.
I’ve also been seeing more and more slime molds. The mystical, indefinable cousins of mushrooms and animals.
But really, the mushrooms out here are bonkers.
And Mt. Adams gets closer. And closer.
The mushrooms are so wild out here.
I even found a perfect little porcini!
Look at that little porker. He’s gonna get cooked up. By me.
My goodness there were so many mushrooms.
I made it to Blue Lake shortly before sunset.
Despite multiple signs telling people not to camp on the shoreline, lots of people were camped there. It really disappoints me how people ignore this.
I walked up to the camping area and ended up running into Ziplock and Baby Spice. We caught up a bit. I set up my tent, made dinner, and then walked down to the lake to fill my water and rinse my feet off. It was so refreshing.
When I got back, I overheard Ziplock complaining to Baby Spice about some hamstring pain. I gave her a nice seated hamstring stretch technique as my dinner cooked. I offered them some porcini, and they declined. More for me.
And I’m glad it was more for me. That thing was delicious!
Hiker midnight was fast approaching and it was time to get to bed. So get to bed I did.