Day 174 (10 October) - Mile 2504.20 - 2522.04

Large creek, wooden bridge to Campsite near Milk Creek

Brrr...it was a cold night. I have added a silk liner to my sleeping system and it seems to work pretty good. The alarm went off at 5:30 AM and I really had to...well...go, so I quickly just put my shoes on and exited the tent. No wonder it felt cold out...there was snow on the ground. With the snow and the cold and the wet tents, it took a while to get ready. Even though we woke at 5:30 AM, we weren't ready to hike till 7:36 AM. 
Oh yeah, after I finished blogging last night Sunshine and Politics showed up. We were so happy that Sunshine caught up to us. We have been trying to hike with her for a very long time. Even though she wasn't quite ready to hike when we were, she came and took the picture with us.

Ready to hike, with Sunshine

This was the view from our tentsite as the sun came up:

Snowy morning view

As soon as we dropped like 100 feet the snow was gone and the ground was clear. We slept right at the snow line...lucky us!

There was a very nice bridge to cross White Chuck River:

Self-portrait "Bridge over White Chuck"

There is "white" in the name of the creek because the water is white due to glacial silt mixed in with it:

Milky water

The beginning of the day the hike was beautiful going through a forest covered in moss.

Moss along PCT

This PCT sign points out that we crossed Red Pass yesterday and we have to cross Fire Creek Paas today.

PCT sign of the day

Check out this tree that is growing on top of a rock:

Cool rock tree

Then we started climbing up Fire Creek Pass that tops off at 6,342 feet. It started snowing and soon as we started climbing:

Snow!

The snow continued all the way up the pass and even started accumulating some. It was s little scary knowing that the snow was getting worse yet we kept climbing higher and higher. Plus, on top of the snow, this section of the trail is very poorly maintained with many trees down across the trail and bushes/trees growing over the trail. Between the snow and the fallen trees and the huge climb, than section is very challenging.

Sunshine & Brad climbing the pass

I finally made it to the top of the pass while it was still lightly snowing:

Self-portrait "Fire Creek Pass"

Looking down Fire Creek Pass

I tried waiting for Sunshine and Brad, but I got cold so I continued down. It looked like the sky was trying to break up a bit, but there were lower clouds moving in at the same time:

Cool clouds

I assume the scenery here would be spectacular if it wasn't for the weather.

Beautiful

After the climb up the pass the trial dove down 3,700 feet to our planned campsite. When we got here there were already three tents pitched. Brad and I had to squeeze our tents into a very small space. As a matter of fact, our alcoves are inside each other's tent, but it seems to work ok. 

All in all today's hike was very difficult. In the 17.70 miles we hiked today we climbed 5,396 feet and went down 6,780 feet. Plus, the downed trees made for an obstacle course all day with some being very challenging. Plus, the snow made our feet and hands wet and cold which couldn't be fixed until getting into our tents. 

I guess I should have mentioned that during today's hike we saw four other hikers plus Sunshine and Politics. We seem to have landed in some sort of thru-hiker bubble here. 
Well, the day totally exhausted me. I have been having a hard time getting this blog done tonight, but I actually made it. Tomorrow's hike should be similar to today's, so I'm hoping for a good night sleep. Until tomorrow... 

Home for the night