We were up pretty early due to the lack of tents and facing an open sky to the east. For some reason the Wilson Phillips song "Hold On" was stuck in my head, I think because of all the helicopter shots in the mountains. I couldn't get the song out of my head. If I had Internet, I know I would have looked that album up to see if it had been reissued with any bonus tracks. Why, I don't know. I never cared about that album when it came out, why would I care about what rarities they dug up to resell the album. Why am I even talking about this? I should be talking about the hike...

It was a nice hike through the open mountains. We passed through White and Red Pass. Gabe showed me where his wife and kid had camped during a storm a few weeks prior.

Down in the basin below Red Pass I spent a while trying to find the location of a 1994 photo. I ended up finding it after a while, but Gabe ended up a bit ahead of me. The trail dropped and dropped a great deal.

Somewhere down in the bottom I heard the distant sound of a fighter jet getting closer. They fly so fast and low that it can be hard to see them. Since I was in the trees I couldn't see anything in the sky. The plane must have gone right over me because I heard a bit of a sonic boom and it got really loud. Another one went over a few minutes later.

The trail crossed Kennedy Creek via a bridge that will probably be gone after this winter. It was split in the center and hanging down into the silty creek.

The trail started climbing and climbing and climbing after that. The trail hugged the back of a very narrow, tree-covered ridge for a few miles.

Just after crossing Glacier Creek I saw Gabe talking to a hiker and then moving on. When I got to the hiker I asked him if he was headed south. He looked up at me and I realized it was Dave Super! He is the guy that runs the outfitter store in Mt. Laguna, a whole 42.9 miles up from the Mexican Border. I saw him on Day 3 of this hike. His little store is better stocked than most outdoor stores. REI is kind of like the Blockbuster (RIP?) video of outdoor stores. (a whole lot of inventory, but pretty broad and not practical for most things). His store is like the Scarecrow Video or Movie Madness. Very specialized and geared towards long distance hiking.

I vaguely remember Dave telling me he was going to be hiking Washington in September, so it was kind of cool to be out this long and actually meet him again. He asked if I was still doing the clock thing. He was one of the first clock photos I had taken on this trip.(along with a girl named Carol, who I heard stopped her thru hike but was going to be hiking Washington this summer).

Gabe and I continued on and decided to chance it and not pack water up to Fire Creek Pass. I got to looking at the map and saw there was water about a half mile down the other side. About 30 minutes before sunset we reached the top of the pass. Gabe was ahead of me and he was pretty excited with the view.

We looked around and found a flat spot a bit up on the ridge. Someone else had camped there because there was a fire ring with some wood scavenged from the one dead tree up there.

Runs with Elk showed up a bit later and ended up camping next to us. Gabe and I spent the next hour taking photos and video of, well everything. Camping on the pass was just as good as I had imagined it would be. Bad weather is supposed to be coming so I'm really happy we made it here before the clouds came.

Cowboy camping tonight under the stars. RWE came over and talked with us for a bit. She had heard that the bike rental place in Stehekin got wiped out by the mudslide...all the bikes got shoved into the lake. She also told us about being a volunteer ranger up at Mt. Rainier and had a few stories.

Alright! Probably won't be leaving early tomorrow since this is such a scenic place. Really glad we are not in a hurry. Today was a pretty exhausting day, about 5500 feet of climbing. Enough rambling. Enjoy all of the photos. I have a lot more (and video) on my other camera that you will have to wait and see in the coming months.