Chapter 17

After going over the pass, I met a SoBo at Hancock Lake. He and a few others camped early as well, at 2pm the day before. I actually got a better part of the thunderstorm, as this side of the pass got hail, while I only got rain. I'm glad I made the right decision to set camp early.

At Hancock Lake, there's a new re-route section of the CT/CDT which was not yet on Guthook. This is nice as it is a trail for non-motorized vehicle travel only. Otherwise the old trail is just hiking on a dirt road. And today, I can hear loud four-wheelers as I was hiking . Not a fan of that.

Once I got to the old railroad section and to the historical sign, water was flowing on the trail. It's a wet feet kind of day. I can't imagine constructing a railroad in this section back in the days. What a harsh winter it must be. Now, it makes for easy-grade hiking. After the historical sign, I saw what I thought was a Pine Marten, a brown, long bodied animal a little over a foot long. But it looks a little bigger. Hmmm.

Right before the switchback, and the old tunnel going to Tunnel Lake, rain started to pour down. I decided to hunker down and wait it out since after here it's all above tree line once again. The trees down here don't provide much protection though. But I found a tree enough to shelter a bit from the wind and rain. A few day hikers passed and asked if I was ok. I said yes and just waiting out the rain. I'm glad I did because it indeed passed and after that I got moving, moving quick just in case.

It is very windy at the first pass. At least I'm dry. I can't imagine if I was at this spot when the rain came in half an hour ago. Visibility would have been zero. Looking north, I can still see rain in all directions. I can also see there's another high point I gotta go up to. So I pushed til I got over to the next high point. Upon going over, I was then able to relax as it was all downhill. It is quite a big switchback down.