Fire and Ice and Dust Day 0

It’s finally happening! Geraldine, Katie, and I are doing a bikepacking trip! We were originally going to do the Olympic Bridges Overnighter plus the out and back to Wynoochee, but due to an uncertain fire situation, we switched to Fire and Ice. Makaela and I did this route a few years ago in October. It rained the entire time. This would be different. 

We met at my house at about 2:00, loaded all our stuff into Katie’s van, and headed south. On the way up the Gorge, Geraldine convinced Katie to stop at Beacon Rock for a “20 minute climb up the rock”. Well, it was a bit more than 20 minutes. More like a little over an hour, but we all agreed it was worth it. I hadn’t been up the rock since 2011 when I was doing the ACA Sierra Cascades Route. 

Photo by Katie. 

It was very toasty on the exposed side. 







Got this guy to take our photo at the top.

We made it to Crest Campground about 7:00ish. We ended up camping nearly right on the PCT. It was okay as no hikers were coming through. A trail angel named Carbs said there were just a couple of section hikers. We later met Speed Queen, a German woman, who was kind of section hiking, but had started out as a thru hiker. We chatted with them for awhile, then hit the sack. 

Unfortunately, we were quite close to the road, and there was a remarkable amount of traffic. The road is gravel, and the amount of dust was terrible. Tomorrow we will start our ride on the Fire and Ice Loop.