If you value solitude, go elsewhere

Deer near my campsite at Snowgrass Flats. Can you see both of them?

“Expect to see a hundred or more people on the trails,” reads the “Crowd Alert” sign at the beginning of Snowgrass Flats Trail 96 leading to the Pacific Crest Trail through the Goat Rocks Wilderness.

It doesn’t say if that is 100 or more per day, per week or whatever. When I first visited the Goat Rocks in 1971 or 1972, I probably would have said that it was for a lifetime. In my three trips through the Goat Rocks back then, I can’t remember meeting more than one person, and that was a lone Canadian female one of my companions later seduced and another asked her if they had jet planes in Canada yet. Quite a contrast in worldliness between those two fellows.

Those trips to Snowgrass Flats were probably the starting place for my more than 40-year obsession with hiking the PCT across Washington State, a task I plan to complete this summer.

The hiker approaching Cispus Pass is Thomas, from Scotland. We had some lunch together at the pass.

Indian paint brush

These past three days I covered the PCT trail from Snowgrass Flats south to the junction with the Nannie Ridge Trail, hiking over Cispus Pass. Next week, John (not one of those companions from the 1970s) and I will hike from Chinook Pass to Stampede Pass. That will leave a 2.5-mile section at Harts Pass in the North Cascade, which we’ll complete later in August.

The “Crowd Alert” advisory goes on to say that “If you value solitude as part of your Wilderness experience,” go elsewhere. Getting off by yourself has always been one of the most meaningful parts of hiking and camping for me, and while it was difficult these past three days, I did manage to find a secluded spot to set up my tent for two nights while I did my day hiking.

It was cloudy and chilly for the first two days, but started to clear up the last night I was out. The sun could not quite melt the clouds away before setting and had to leave the last of the job to the moon, which came out full and gave me a clear, sunny morning. 

And clouds have their own beauty as they roll over the peaks.

I never reached the expected 100. I didn’t stop counting until I got in my truck and drove out of the parking lot, where more hikers were arriving.

56. . .57. . .58.

Looking east over the Klickton Divide.

Of course the clouds always clear on the day you hike out. Mount Rainier was lovely that day.