Bright sunlight illuminated my tent walls at 6 AM. I remembered where I was and unzipped my tent vestibule to an incredible view.

The clouds had all sunk to the bottom of the river valley a couple hundred feet below, leaving me with a clear sky to admire everything around me. It was still chilly, so I pulled my quilt out of my tent to eat breakfast and take in the view.

It didn’t take long before the sun warmed me up enough to stretch my legs and start packing up. As I was making my way back to the trail, I passed Teddy’s tent. He’d camped just about 50 feet away from me, and as I passed, I tried to remember if I’d talked out loud to myself at all in the preceding 12 hours.

I stopped at the Whatcom camp to use the pit toilet, which was a fancy plastic ordeal that hadn’t been properly maintained, making it one of the smelliest toilets I’ve ever used. I filtered a liter of water from a cold, mossy spring and started descending into the clouds.

The trail through the next valley alernated between scratchy brush and dark forest. This was a popular equestrian route, so it had also been torn up by horseshoes at some parts along the way. To my dismay, I ran into a sign saying that the Chilliwack River cable car was out and I’d have to ford the river on foot. I’d been looking forward to the cable car crossing.

Down at the river (0770P), I took off my shoes and hung them on my pack before walking carefully across. When I made it to the other bank, there was another hiker there preparing to cross. I sat down for lunch and talked to him for a while. He was visiting from Thailand and had a few more days of hiking before he would fly back home. I asked him to watch out for a couple of hikers, one shorter with blue-purple shorts (Bugs) and one with star tattoos on his knees (Moose), and let them know I’d be camping on Hannegan Peak if they wanted to join.

The rest of the hike through the Chilliwack River valley was pretty uneventful. There weren’t many views of the surrounding mountains. I scrambled down to fill up a whole 4 liters of water at Hells Gorge before my 3000-foot climb up to Hannegan Peak. There were a lot of day hikers here, and the smell of detergent was thick in the air.

I stopped to use the toilet at Hannegan Pass (0777P) and continued north on the trail toward Hannegan Peak. I’d heard there were a few good campsites on the way. Although I didn’t take any photos, the climb was spectacular. I was tired, but so excited that I hiked as fast as I could. On the way up, there was a perfect view of Ruth Mountain and Mount Shuksan to the south. The peak had a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains.

There was indeed a flat camping spot right below the peak, complete with a small wind shield made from piled rocks. I knew it was going to be a cold and windy night, so I tried to set up my tent for the wind – pitched tight with rocks holding in the stakes; vestibule pulled down low and facing against the wind. I ate a dinner of macaroni and cheese while I watched the last day-hikers make their evening ascents.


I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of ice cracking in the distance. I had to pee anyway, so I got out of my tent. It was almost freezing cold, and I was shivering, but the scene in front of me was incredible. The sky was clear and everything was strangely still. I could see the glaciers on Ruth Mountain glistening in the moonlight. I set up my camera and balanced it on some rocks to take a few 1-minute exposure photos. They didn’t turn out that great, but they still sort of captured the moment.

It took me a while to get back to sleep after that. The wind picked up again and there was heavy condensation inside my tent. I tried my best to stay warm.