July 27
We broke camp and had breakfast again. It’s a fairly chilly morning again today. We started off on the trail and I stopped after about a quarter mile and dug my gloves out of my pack. My fingers were getting pretty cold.
One of the things I love in the mornings is watching the sun start to cascade down the sides of the mountains around us, bringing its light and the contrasting shadows as it rises. You can see a patch of fog rising from a lake in the valley still in the shade.
You now can see the lake below the fog. It is risen enough to make it visible.
The beauty of this valley is just undescribable. I am actually in awe looking out at it. Creation is such an incredibly beautiful thing.
Well, I have seen the edible thistle before, but never with its flower blooming.
I’ve seen the western Columbine before, but I don’t recall it being this tall or grouped with this many.
The Sitka Valerian has leaves close to the ground and a long bare stem which presents clusters of small white flowers.
I’ve already taken so many pictures of Mount Adams but I reach a new view and I look back at it and I just can’t help but take another one because it is so incredible
The mountainside across the valley from me is beautiful with the mix of bare rock, trees, and meadows interspersing with each other and contrasting with one another
Today, once again the trail is providing clumps of multi colored wildflowers grouped together. Light purple, dark purple, orange, red, white, yellow, mixed with their green leaves it’s beautiful
The American Bistort has a long stem with a bushy elongated tip resembling a pipe cleaner, and the Pine Mountainheath has a small purple flower on a green evergreen stem.
Nuttall’s, Larkspur is a variant species of some of the previous larkspurs we’ve seen
Today is one of those days where I am just completely overwhelmed by the beauty I am seeing. Everywhere I walk there’s something new, I’m finding many new flowers, open meadows, and beautiful mountain ranges. I find myself stopping way more than I should, but also not enough.
Erythanthe Lewisii has a violet purple, trumpet shaped flower. The long stemmed, dark purple flower is the Colombian Monkshood . The yellow Erythranthe Guttata is part of the monkey flowers family.
The White Pasqueflower is another entry into my list of new to me flowers. Today there have been so many, and we’re only a couple hours into todays hike
More incredibly beautiful mountain views
The Bakers Mariposa Lily fills this grassy meadow area and has been popping up along the trail for the past few miles. It has beautiful colors in it.
Wow incredible almost at a loss for words
The trail is now leading us a little downhill after crossing Cispus pass, and we are going to be going right by the river and waterfall pictured below
On the way to the Cispus river and waterfall. We passed many small feeder streams lined with wildflowers. As we walk through the beautiful valley I’m again left speechless with its beauty.
The Cispus river and waterfall is absolutely gorgeous both its own beauty, and the setting it is in the provided a great place for a second breakfast
We passed by this shall scree Mountainside where they built a stone retaining wall up against it. It’s very interesting to see the amount of labor that must’ve gone into that.
I’ve seen a lot of chipmunks, but rarely do they sit still for a picture. Oftentimes they’ll see you coming down the trail and they will run ahead of you 100 feet stop look over their shoulder and then run another hundred feet and do that three or four times before darting off into the bushes or rocks. This one stopped and gave me some poses.
Another series of incredible views, in almost every direction
Across to the valley is another high mountain lake. It’s outlet forms a waterfall below.
I hope it’s not getting old for you, for me there’s no way it could. Here is another hi vantage point with 300° awesome views.
This is my view from a sitting position while eating lunch
After lunch, we took the PCT stock route alternate that goes higher and has better views than the hiker route. It’s .4 miles longer and goes straight up straight down, whereas the hiker route travels side slope across a snow Traverse. The stock route reconnects to the regular hiker route at the beginning of the knifes edge.
The mountain walls on the opposite side of this valley are beautiful with multiple streams, cascading, waterfalls, and interesting texture
Ad I come around the corner and I’m heading straight towards this tall basalt column
We are hiking down a valley along side, snow melt streams, cascading down the hillside, and join one, another, becoming larger with each Junction. The upper edge of the valley is lined with jagged peaks.
We arrived at tonights campsite. Ate dinner and visited with a couple other hikers.
Today’s PCT miles hiked 20.1
Total PCT Miles hiked to date 1743.0
PCT mile marker 2285.7
(Flipped over 542.8 miles)
