We did this 72 mile section the first week in August, picking a pretty easy pace except for the last day when we decided to push through, exit a day early and did 18 miles: a personal record for me. We headed southbound, starting at Stevens Pass and ending at Snoqualmie.
When we started out there was some concern about fires – we could see heavy smoke and had heard some reports so we made sure we had a few exit options if the smoke became more than I could handle. But as soon as we crossed over the first pass at Stevens it began to clear.
This was my second longest hiking trip (after my 10 day hike of the Wonderland Trail) and the most days worth of food I’ve ever carried – on the Wonderland we arranged for a resupply every 3-4 day. For this one we started with 7+ days of food, no resupply, and my starting weight was 34lbs.
I bought myself a new tent just for this – a durston. Which is single wall tent that uses your trekking poles in place of its own poles – it weighs only 17oz compared to my 2-man REI quarter dome, which comes in at about 3lbs.
Highlights: swimming in alpine lakes many times when it was hot. Snacking on huckleberries for miles and miles. Finding out that the scary water crossing we were warned about was easy. The Kendall Katwalk was not as scary as I worried but the section north of it was.
