Even a trail detour has its hazards

"I'm outta here!"

These were frustrating words to hear from Jim, my Pacific Crest Trail hiking partner. He was accompanying me on my last section of the trail to complete the 515 miles of the PCT across Washington state. This portion, from Rainy Pass to Stevens Pass, was our longest (120 miles) and took us through the Glacier Peak Wilderness, the most remote section of the Mexico-to-Canada trail.

I had been delaying hiking this portion of the PCT until the trail damage due to the fall storms of 2003 had been repaired. As the Suiattle River bridge still had not been replaced and trail washouts had not been repaired almost five years later, we expected to hike the detour section taking us around the east side of Glacier Peak.

To our surprise, once on the trail, we met hikers coming north from the California-Mexico border who said they had taken the regular PCT, not the detour. They made it through despite trail washouts to circumvent a five-year accumulation of some 211 windfall trees across two miles of trail, according to one hiker's count, and a hair-raising log-crossing over the glacial Suiattle River.

Jim and I discussed the choice of the old PCT vs. the detour. One morning at the end of fitful sleep, he declared that it was still the detour for him.

We hiked over Suiattle Pass and down the valley to Miners Creek. A short distance later we came to the junction of the PCT trail going west and the detour south over Buck Creek Pass. Eighteen bypass miles later, we had traversed Buck Creek Pass with dramatic views of Glacier Peak, a long walk down to the former mining village of Trinity, and a few miles of road walk to reach the Chiwawa River ford at 2,600 feet elevation. There we began our uphill, 3,800-foot climb of Little Giant Pass. After creating switchbacks with moderate steepness, the trail architect decided to just go straight up the mountain through overhanging brush and an open rock face area just short of scrambling. A final push via exposed "trail" brought us to the pass at 6,400 feet, a major effort with 45-pound packs!

We camped overnight on a site protected from the wind by stunted alpine fir. Besides the night chill and wind noise, Jim was unable to sleep due to the trail description that I had read aloud for the descent ahead of us into the Napeequa Valley — "trail sections with narrow tread, steep side hill exposure, dangerous rock step-downs, most difficult trail on the detour, difficult ford of Napeequa River."

The Pacific Crest Trail is one of two iconic trails in our country, the other being the Appalachian Trail. In the almost five years following trail damage, funds have not been available to complete repairs. Moreover, the detour going over Little Giant and subsequently Boulder Pass involved negotiating what could kindly be referred to as climber's trails. .

My hiking memories go back to the 1950s, a time when trails were maintained. Now U.S. Forest Service budgets have been so severely cut that trail maintenance is limited. Our trip was unfortunately aborted, as there was no safe choice through this trail section.

This is another example of the suffering infrastructure in our country. Compared to other government expenses, repair costs of the PCT damage are trivial. It is fortunate and a tribute to the skill of PCT hikers that no one has been seriously injured or lost down the rushing glacial Suiattle River.

Alan Fritzberg lives in Bellingham.

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