I feel it in my thighs.

We just hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from the South Climb Trail on Mt. Adams, around the mountain, through the forest, up an over the Goat Rocks and all the way to White Pass. It was eight days in the wilderness. My longest stint of the year. The longest trip Lindsey and I have taken together.

And it was utterly groovy.

First, a shout-out to Ali and Colin for being outstanding hiker friends the last three days on the PCT through Goat Rocks Wilderness. It was fun guys. And truly, you made this trip possible by dropping us off at Mt. Adams then days later setting up cars on the northern end, at Walupt Lake and White Pass. PCT section hiking is a mess of impossible logistics. You made it possible.

The Portland portion of vacation was quick: flugtag (flying machines crashing into the river), brewery, Next Adventure (saw PCTers), chores, backyard BBQ, and a comedy show.

Then, hiking. There’s too much to tell and I’m not one for sharing in detail.

Circling around half of Mt. Adams was beautiful. We had nice camps, walked through a large burn area, ran into a friend, and did two side trips. High Camp was very much worth the effort and provided grand views of Adams immediately above, Saint Helens and Rainier. Lookingglass Lake wasn’t. It had burned.

A quintessential sketchy guy, deep in the wilderness, completely unkempt, with a machete, gnarly infected eye and a you-wouldn’t-believe-it charming and nice demeanor, gave us mushrooms on the shoulder of Mt. Adams. We ate those King Boletes and they were delicious with couscous.

As often happens, we slept a lot. Wonderfully long naps. Early bed times. Late starts. Walking 10 miles per day is really darn pleasant. I also read a book (What is the What?), usually with Lindsey cutely reading snippets over my shoulder instead of doing math or reading scientific papers.

I really like section hiking the PCT. Yes, i’ve seen it all. But it’s oh so nice to return to familiar places.

On our fifth day, I swam, read, relaxed, ate the crumbs of my food bag and twiddled thumbs long enough to start to worry. Then, Ali and Colin finally walked up to our backcountry lake, with the food and smiles we were expecting. Whew.

From there on, it was the heart of Goat Rocks Wilderness. It’s for that scenery that I flew up to the northwest. On my thru-hike, I had decidedly mixed conditions through the area. Partly cloudy skies, then rain and fog. This time, wonderful blue skies and puffy clouds dominated. We had one of the most epic PCT camps that I’ve had with full views of Mt. Adams, Saint Helens, Rainier and Goat Lake. We climbed to the summit of Old Snowy and I walked the Old Snowy alternate as well as the actual PCT. Then we hit the iconic Knife’s Edge and did the still very enjoyable miles down to White Pass.

I gave my conditions report to my coworker who is in charge of the area and it was full of details. The major bits were: a bit of ATV incursion near Potato Butte, generally excellent trail, mild brush above Walupt, still incorrect signage on the alternate on Old Snowy, really bad tread collapse on the Knife’s Edge, and the wonderful experience of walking northbound right after logout and new trail around Shoe Lake. Also: every camp had an actively used fire ring, usually far too close the the trail, and during a fire ban. And, too much toilet paper from people that buried it an inch deep, plus multiple outright surface turds. Remember to teach newbies pooping and make sure they comfortable with doing it right.