Epic solo overnight trip. Drove north from Seattle on Friday afternoon after work. Stopped at wilderness ranger’s office in Darrington to ask about idea for hikes around Glacier. Ranger mumbled something along the lines of “well there used to be this thing called the Haute Route but I don’t think it’s really done much anymore, if it ever existed”. That was enough to get me excited. That evening I hiked up the beautiful Suiatte trail, headed up the Gamma ridge trail which at the time was more about hopping over gigantic fallen logs for hours on end than anything else. River crossing was quite challenging with snowmelt in full action. Slept somewhere on the Gamma ridge and was woken up by a couple of curious mountain goats. Hiked up to top of Gamma peak and then across the cirque which was just as long and exhausting as expected and ended with a small snow bridge over the river collapsing... Reached the PCT which was a delightful graded trail, and headed down the Milk Trail - looked like a good idea on the map... As a closed and I maintained trail it very much met expectations - impenetrable (and prickly) vegetation, partly washed out sections and much more fun. Followed the Suiatte river for a few miles and was getting a little worried about how to cross, until I finally stumbled on the one and only log conveniently lying across the river allowing a safe return to my car. On the freeway back to Seattle got a call from a frazzled colleague saying “where have you been this weekend? We tried to reach you, first we were just annoyed at you and then we got nervous something might have happened to you”. I provided a distracted response along the lines of “Oh, I was just hiking. Sorry, bad cell phone coverage”. Didn’t think a more detailed answer would have helped my
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