Start – Above Milk Creek
Finish – Sitkum Creek
Daily Distance – 29 km
Ascent – 1260 m
Descent – 1800 m
Today was very much a Beauty and the Beast type of day. Not in the sense that anyone spontaneously broke into narrative advancing song, or abducted a village girl, rather more that several parts were beautiful, but the rest was downright ugly.
Milk Creek sounds like an innocuous place, perhaps somewhere to eat morning cereal, but among PCT hikers it is infamous. Much of this section between Stehekin and Steven’s Pass suffers from poor maintenance. Fallen trees and undergrowth encroaching onto the trail are reasonably commonplace. However, whereas most sections of undergrowth are chest height, on the descent into the Milky Creek valley, and corresponding ascent to freedom, the undergrowth is typically slightly above head height. In some ways this makes the descent actually harder than the ascent. The dense foliage obscures stones and stems of plants, which are waiting to snag an unwary foot. The runaway growth pushes hikers to walk on the edge of the switchback path, making it all too easy to lose a foot off the edge and have to scramble to regain balance. Everyone who runs the gauntlet emerges with an array of scratches and to their legs, and I am sadly no exception. Although if anyone asks, I got them wrestling a mountain lion, rather than misjudging the relative position of my knee and a large rock.
Other parts of the day were, by way of contrast, stunningly beautiful. The morning views upon leaving camp were breathtaking and my lunchtime swim in a glacier fed lake Mica was refreshing as it was bone chillingly brief. Quite what the submerging of my body into the pristine pool did for the water quality I don’t want to consider. It has been 9 days since my last shower (excluding dips in lake Chelan at Stehekin), even longer since I last slept in a real bed, and the state of my feet is sufficient to cause nightmares in small children.
Tonight I will sleep very early. It has been one of the most punishing days on trail so far. Even more so as I wanted to make additional ground today given predicted thunder storms tomorrow, which may slow my progress.
Beware of lakes that resemble mirrors – they hold lots of coldness, more so when you are looking down on the clouds.
Hopefully the legs recover and the undergrowth diminishes.
That was a real pig of a day. Well done for getting through it. I hope your feet just stink and aren’t sore.