The morning light washed away my terror from the night before, and I gathered up the courage to check the pit toilet for dead bodies. There were none. Relieved, I packed up and started down the mountain, hiking to the sunny, relaxing tones of Helado Negro’s album This Is How You Smile.

Never got an ID for this one.

The trailhead on the other side of Mount Zion (1032P) had a proper pit toilet and full parking lot. I met two older women there who chatted me up for a while and bestowed upon me a hard-boiled egg, a banana, and a granola bar, gifts which I cherished and downed immediately after I said goodbye to them.

The trails I followed for the next 9 miles were frankly bizarre. Mostly they were overgrown old jeep trails and maybe tiny logging roads. I lost my way plenty of times, checked my compass constantly, and wondered when I would get to the beautiful Olympic forests that I expected.

My answer to that question came as soon as I stumbled off of a jeep trail to cross a forest road at the Tubal Cain trailhead. At the national forest boundary, the overgrown brush and second- or third-growth doug firs immediately gave way to a forest of tall spruces and cedars, layered beautifully with a sparse understory and mossy floor. There were at least 10 cars parked along the forest road, and I saw a few families milling about at the trailhead. A perfect time for my body to decide that I needed to poop, urgently. So I slinked far off into the woods like a wounded animal and dug a deep hole in the humus.

Hiking up the gentle grade of the Tubal Cain trail was nothing short of pleasant. I stopped a few times along the gentle incline to plunge my fingers inches deep into the fern-like moss that coated the boulders on the left side of the trail.

Most of the day-hikers had turned back to their cars by the time I crossed Copper Creek (1047P). From here, the trees started to get smaller and more scraggly due to elevation, eventually disappearing altogether. Ascending out of the treeline was thrilling as ever. Puffy little cumulus clouds floated directly overhead and kissed the mountaintops.

The alpine views were nothing short of incredible. I snapped a lot of quick pictures, but I didn’t have a lot of time to sit and admire the scenery. I had to make it a few more miles to Camp Mystery, where I’d be staying the night. So I zoomed through the alpine ridgelines until I found my turn-off onto the Big Quilcene Trail at Marmot Pass. The sun set behind some mountaintops to the southwest and I made my way down to camp, collecting a few liters of water at a stream on the way. I had a strange and sad feeling there, probably because the camp was lined with dead/dying trees, which always makes me feel anxious.