Day 16 : Lake Susan Jane

Start – Lake Susan Jane
Finish – Deception Lakes (1545 m)
Daily Distance – 21.5 km
Ascent – 1200 m
Descent – 1050 m

One aspect of my daily routine that could do with refinement is in taking enough breaks. When hiking alone, which is pretty much my constant state, my breaks tend to be both short and infrequent. So it was a nice change of pace to have a lunchtime companion today. Entirely unplanned, I just happened to be arranging my lunch while perched atop a large rock with a commanding view of the valley below, when a Northbound hiker stopped to say hello. So it was that after initial chit-chat and mutual curiosity about accents, I ended up sharing a long lunch with Elfi from France, another ex-pat living in Germany. Fortunately, I had walked steadily all morning, as 1.5 hour lunch breaks do rather set back one’s hiking schedule. I don’t regret the time though. It was lovely to be able to commiserate about many of the same aspects of expat/German life as a foreigner (e.g. forgetting how to speak our mother tongue), but also being able to acknowledge the good parts too. And having been, earlier in the year, impatiently checking the letterbox for the results of my residency test, it was funny to know that at least one other person has issues with the glacial pace of German bureaucracy. For all the issues of Europe though, we both could agree that the US feels very much like Europe in the 90s with regards its attitudes to consumption. It is like living in a world before recycling and climate change were topics. Big cars, single use items (I have rarely seen metal tableware), and everything goes in the bin for landfill. A beautiful country, with many lovely people, but not a place that seems to engage seriously with the world’s problems.

As one of my evening chores, I like to work out a rough plan for the following day, so the short distance today was always in the plan as an option. It was a little shorter than optimum, but featured slightly more ascent than absolutely required for my proposed section timing. Also important, it landed me at a lovely camping spot. I saw in the GPS app that Deception Lake has a number of camping spots on a peninsula jutting out into the lake. One just has to walk over a number of sturdy logs to get to/from the shore. The temperature is dropping now that the sun is disappearing behind the trees, not surprising at 1,500 metres, but the lake and mountain views make up for the cold. Far better than some nondescript campsite in the woods. Just a shame that I didn’t arrive a touch earlier for a proper swim, rather than just a paddle. Also, it is still mosquito season in Washington…