Sunset alpenglow from the Kendall Katwalk on the Pacific Crest Trail, late afternoon/early evening of Tuesday the 1st of September 2020.

Hello! I’m William, the author of this piece. Enjoy!

Preparing my feet for the trail. I’m a bit more gearheady than some folks, LOL! First, a thin Smartwool liner sock beneath a Wrightsock Coolmesh. Even tho the Wright is a double layer, I prefer a separate liner sock to prevent hot spots & blisters. Big advocate of gaiters, including minigaiters. Keeps dirt, grit, twigs, leaf litter, muck, “snud,” etc., outa my shoes, boots, & sox. Every time I said, “F*** it,” & hiked without minigaiters, I’ve regretted it. I don’t give a frick about those who don’t care about keeping crud outa their shoes and away from cutting holes in yer sox, yo. I put foot powder in my shoes & boots sometimes to keep down moisture & odors, but after the first day I don’t care. Enjoy thy natural aromas! And my hiking boot is a trail shoe, the 2019 Altra Timp 1.5 for men. Love the roomier toe box and the lightweight fit, tho the shoe itself weighs in as a “heavy” @ 11 oz. Still lighter than what it used to be. Such shoes are tools, learn to use them, or else they’ll fold up all to pieces if you stomp up & up down yon mountain paths as if you’re troggin’ like a lumberjack in cute burly dancing boots. And it’s froggin troggin me noggins at 14:15:40, ¡LOL!

Liner sock first, primary sock second, and then my REI brand mini/shortie/summertrail gaiters up before i put on my shoes, LOL!

Cute?

Completion! Plus I prefer to push my socks down within my gaiters after snugging them up inside my shoe. Shows off my 61 years young calves, LOL!!!

Trekking poles! Sometimes I use one, switching back n’ forth, sometimes none, & sometimes both. Black Diamond Trail Trekkers fer Man Peoples; 490 grams.

The author on the Left of Center, LOL! Happy, too!

The Trail begins…altho it began way down on the U.S.-Mexican border at Campo, CA, 25 ft. north of Mexico’s Baja California state line. 16:13:02.

Water, source of life on Planet Sol 3a, aka EARTH, our only home.

Looking up trailside to see the Sky.

Guye Peak looms up to 1575 meters or 5,168 feet across from where I stand on the PCT, 16:13:02 Tuesday 1 September 2020.

The Sky over Guye.

Am I snarky? Hey, I’m in love with a Jamaican in Virginia, and I’m in love with the Great Outdoors here in Washington! Forever torn between Washington & Oregon here in the PNW and Virginia & North Carolina back in the ASE. Today is a splendid day to feel alive!

Blue skies and white clouds over mountain forests and meadows enchant me. Many of the other hikers I saw today also seemed enchanted. My spirit soared as I felt myself healing by simply being outside and moving my body. Felt so surprised, however, to encounter so many people wearing face masks per the Pandemic. Most appeared agitated enough to step a bit off the trail. This situation perplexed me. Even felt a bit self-conscious as I didn’t wear a mask. I do back in the city. Back among crowds. All day long at work. But outside? In the wide-open spaces cleansed by the sun, the wind, the trees? Nawww, man. Was supposed to be safe, yes? Then again trail culture is a linear community. This was my first real hike outside the city, tho, and it’s medicine for my soul. Didn’t realize how energetically sick I had become from the Pandemic. COVID-19 has disrupted everything.

An older man passes me and gallops on up the trail. 

Crossing from the “regular” national forest into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area @ 16:20:33. This large, designated wilderness is divided roughly along the length of Section J of the PCT between the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie and the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forests. I’ve delighted in rediscovering my “backyard” wilderness after so many trips to wild places further away.

First views of Red Mountain, 5,890 feet or 1,795 meters in elevation. North of Snoqualmie Pass in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Washington. 16:21:22.

Blue Skies over Red Mountains…

Plants with little hidden invertebrates. The tremendous diversity and richness of Earth’s Gaian ecosphere must make our planet an extraordinary jewel amongst the many billions of worlds within our galaxy. Or, is life commonplace?

Loving the life flourishing in such a dramatic locale.

Red Mountain is a relatively small peak, yet it dominates the inbetweens. 16:58:02, too, LOL!

Beckons me forward, the mountain at the edge of the sky does.

PaPa Ghost Bone Tree. After all, death feeds life. It’s life that often doesn’t wait for death before it feeds.

Hey, I ain’t no PaPa Ghost yet! Self-Portrait by Author, ¡LOL! @ 18:11:36 this Tuesday the 1st of September 2020 Common Era, Earth. Still a ways to go, yo!

Still bright @ 18:09:48.

Rambling thru talus & scree on the PCT.

Following the trail…

…to the sky.

The western skies at 18:49:38.

18:50:00 & west from east.

Turned around to look south and there she looms…Mt. Rainier, the massive mountain whose bulk is larger than Everest’s, a peak long, long overdue to reclaim its Native names including Tahoma and Ti’Swaq, the Sky Wiper, as Rainier is the surname of a British imperial admiral who warred against the United States back on the North American East Coast. Tahoma soars up to 14,411 feet or 4,392 meters in height. I’ve only stood on its summit twice, been partway up several times, and am overdue for another summit push. Love this monster peak we simply call, The Mountain.

Tahoma Blue.

The Sun slides away…19:35:28.

19:35:29.

19:35:39.

19:35:42.

19:35:44.

19:36:38.

Looking back down the trail in the afterglow light, 19:36:52.

Heading up to round the bend…

Alpenglow on the peaks.

Storms coming and going…

Storms going and coming…

I stood on the crest trail in awe watching clouds and light play as the light waned and shadows fell further across the valleys. For a brief moment the urge to burst into Mongol & Tuvan throat singing, except I didn’t know how to overlay such tones and I can’t sing well anyway, LOL, and all was beautiful in these precious moments already passed. 19:40:16.

A potentially hazardous places for horses lays ahead.

Approaching the Kendall Katwalk @ 19:59:33. Finally, after 3 decades of false starts… Hey, life happens, priorities shift, timespace and spacetime wrap with gravity, and the sun sets as I keep on walking down the trail.

The Moon begins to rise from the eastern horizons. Psychedelic cheeseburgers! At 20:00:00, LOL!

Crazy Luna madness? No. I’m sober as shit! And enthralled with awe of Nature’s mundane magnificence.

Blinded by my own light, LOL!

Goofy ol’ fool having great fun in the wilderness, LOL! And I’m only 61 years along on Tuesday the 1st of September 2020 in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and, shit, it’s, um, it’s only flipping’ frakkin’ 20:20:49. A ways to go yet to camp at the lakes.  And I look around for mountain lions shadowing me, for hangry Sasquatch with big, hairy feet with gigantic uncut toenails, but am I worried about cougars & bigfooties? No. Bears? No! More concerned, brace yourself, for a Trumpler-GOP-QAnonner-induced civil war triggering a world war. And what dread truly keeps me awake? Hostile UFO/UAP/SSP/ET/CT/ID/AI-cyborg “Alien entities.” Seriously? Yes. Yes. Yes. I move forward & hike on.

Luna Moon continues to creep along the edges of mountains.

There! The Moon! At 20:24:43.

Zooming in on the nearby alpine ridges.

Moon.

I love watching moonrises as much as sunsets.

Chaos smooths out the skies of nightfall.

A particular Homo sapiens, the author in this cases, takes a selfie of itself with an Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max smartfone. Humans enjoy snapping selfies of themselves looking bemused. It’s a sapient trait. The first iPhone, by the way, took Apple 2 yrs to develop and was released in 2007, a mere 13 yrs ago. The author, by the way, wears clothes, has on a modified Osprey Exos 58 S bought new in 2015, & a Black Diamond Spot headlamp from a coupla years prior. 

Wild life, Woo HOO hooty HOO hoo! An unexpected yet heartwarming find, a salamander in the midst of the Cascade Mountains of Washington. Does anyone know what species of salamander this represents? I’m guessing it’s a Dunn’s salamander (Plethodon dunni). They love wet Cascadian mountain rock. Anyone? Feel free to comment at the end.

The Darkness comes alive. Darkness is not evil. It is nature, merely the planet as it rotates away from the star we call Sol, the Sun, the one blasting us, 3rd rock from the Sun, with life-altering, even lethal radiation.

Clouds swirl as instant storms whirl over mountain ridges and sink down the passes & vanish into the warmth of valleys.

On the Pacific Crest Trail peering down at Ridge Lake. In the distance one can see the PCT curling around thru talus & screen on its way north into Canada. Ah, it’s Wednesday morning now, a beautiful morning after a rambunctious night, at 08:37:09, on the 2nd day of the 9th month September of the year 2020 C.E.

The smell & the sounds of mountain lakes & forests in the morning enchants me & distracts me from contemplating hilariously silly-scary zombie movies. Oh, yeah, Ents! The Ent Giants of J.R.R. Tolkien!

Ridge Lake views sweep below me as I head south back to Snoqualmie Pass & my old green minivan.

Farewell to the lake, 08:41:39. Summer wanes. One can feel Autumn in the air even as we’ve a few short weeks of Long Days left.

Mountains beyond mountains. Ahead looms the fortress-like cliffs of the Kendall Peak ridge complex. Beyond peeks glacier-covered Mt. Rainier. The truncated, flattened, open cone of Mt. St. Helens is visible just above the horizon line in the center on the far left. 8:53:12. Been moving slow as mud all morning, but feel myself beginning to speed up a tad. Well, for an out of shape, out of condition 61 yro fella, that is. And a former thruhiker to boot!

Still a ways to go. And the views are glorious all the way!

Southbound at the northern entrance to the Kendall Katwalk. The young couple traveling with the ex-soldier are already of ahead of me the army guy, who is slightly injured.

We’re at the Kendall Katwalk where I take a picture of Mr. Military snapping a foto of The Funny Couple. 02 SEPT 2021 @ 09:20:33, Woo HOO!

The Funny Couple, a goofy fun & excitable young woman & young man section hiking the PCT thru the Alpine Lakes Wilderness from Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie Pass.

Don’t fall, Funny Couple! It’s a long ways down.

Me by Mr. Military.

Life on the Brink, living along the edge.

Around the corner  looms The Mountain. Oh, so tantalizingly close…

…and so far away.

Mt. Rainier needs to have its name officially changed. We must change its name. And why not allow for more than one name? Instead of an enemy military commander who never set foot in the Pacific Northwest, why not name it after what the First Peoples used to call it? Tacoma? Tahoma? Takoma? Tacobeh? Or what the Tribal Alliance to Restore Native Names suggest, Ti’Swaq’? Pronounced as “Tee Swauk,” this reflects the gigantic volcano’s capacity to wipe the heavens clean as, The Sky Wiper.

Where my then-little daughter Kate once saw the horses! Circa August 2001? We encountered a husband & wife team riding their horses along the PCT, which is graded for horses. They even allowed Kate to sit atop a horse, and those were big horses, too! Kate & I also realized we had run out of time to reach the Katwalk, so we turned around and took a shortcut thru Commonwealth Basin back to the car only to discover the bushwhacking was a mistake. We spent hours cutting thru the brush in the dark before getting back to the car. We called home from a pay fone as smart fones weren’t widespread back then. She was one tough kid!

I wondered what “Where Kate once saw the horses when she was a little girl place” be in a Native American description? English is sometimes clumsy & recursively messy. I’ll always remember this spot as a precious adventure, indeed a grand misadventure, between a father and his young daughter.

Slicky slide!

Vaguely recall playing along this curvy slope with my daughter Kate many years ago.

Avalanche debris cache basin far below…imagine getting caught up in a massive churn of snow so powerful it ripped out and shredded trees before shoving them down the mountain. 11:50:57.

Glad I wasn’t caught in this old avalanche.

The Pacific Crest Trails cuts thru the aftermath of long-ago, prehistoric cataclysms. Our lives may feel long yet oh so short as we live on a dynamic planet in a turbulent solar system in a fiercely energetic galaxy.

Finally, more wildlife! A Western toad, or Bufo boreas, squats & scrambles up the hill.

Hopping along the Cascades in the Alpine Lakes as I head on back down towards my old minivan.