Day 14: Glen Pass
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Packing up in the morning, ready to head out
Dollar Lake and Fin Dome
Log bridge crossing
Fin Dome, again
Rae Lakes
Future home of Beth's Secret Island Fortress
Glen Pass was one of the bigger challenges for me, mentally at least. At some point on the trail, I looked at my map and decided that we had climbed 1000 of the 1400ft up from Rae Lakes; in reality, we had maybe only climbed 500. I came to the end of a slight rise, and asked the guy sitting there if I was at the top. He pointed up to this seemingly impossibly tall mountain and said, "No, that's the pass." In reality, it wasn't as far as it seemed, and it went much faster now that we had it in sight. These photos are from the top of Glen Pass; there was a very narrow, knife-edge trail at the very top.
We spent some time at the top talking to "the girls", who we had previously met near the suspension bridge the day before. Ian succeeded on unloading some of his excess hot chocolate and coffee on them, but later wished he had asked if they had any extra tortillas.
There was another lady there at the top who we had passed on the way up (she was moving exceptionally slowly). She said she was carrying an 80-lb pack, and doing a 20-day trip from Road's End to Colby Pass. She said she had never hiked or camped before. We couldn't decide if she was lying, crazy, or both.
Switchbacks down from the pass
As we headed down towards the Charlotte Lake area, we noticed a lot of haze, which seemed unusual. We later found out there was a forest fire in the general area.
We camped 1.5 miles past the second Road's End junction, just under 10,000 ft.
Final Tally:
12.5 miles
2900 ft up, 2500 ft down
1 marmot
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