Tuesday September 3, 23.1mi/37.2km

Copper Creek camp (1046.5/4311ft) to Bear camp (1069.6/3878ft) (WA)

It was a cold night, as I expected, and I laid in my sleeping bag until the sun was up enough to warm the air. The 2000ft climb up to the pass was a nice warm up.

Up, and up…

And up…

I reached the top of Marmot Pass, and I could hear the little creatures everywhere. Good views too.

There was a brief ridgewalk, before I descended down into the trees.

And at the end of the ridge, I officially entered Olympic NP!

The trail crossed many small streams from the snowfields above.

I was up in the alpine almost all day, and I took way too many photos.

Home Lake:

Constance Pass:

I saw that someone had built an emergency shelter of sorts, too. It was windy up high, and I was above treeline for a few miles.

And then, the huge descent. I went down 4300ft in 3.9 miles, ouch! It was very wet and green at the bottom, near the Dosewallips River.

The last couple hours of the day, the trail was nice and wide all the way to camp. Even the bridges were wide.

An hour before camp, I caught up to another PNT hiker! His name is Seth, trail name “Calvin”, and we hiked together and talked for the last few miles to the shelter. It was so exciting to have company out here. And the shelter was brand new, so I actually decided to sleep in it.

This will be the first night (on this trail) that I’m camping in something other than my tent. Wheee!