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Washington's Cascades
The Columbia River from the north end of Bridge of the Gods, which the PCT follows across from Cascade Locks, OR.
Encouraging signs of progress. Unfortunately for me the 507 miles through Washington would be among the hardest due to the continued presence of snow.
Blackberries just north of the Columbia River, some of the few I found since most of the PCT was still in a late-spring mode.
Lilium columbianum, also known as the Columbia lily, or tiger lily
A quintessential stretch of trail north of the Columbia River: fir needle-covered tread, moss-covered everything, lush ferns and head-high undergrowth, and a thick canopy of firs.
Land snail
A good view of Mt. Adams, which the trail skirts around on its west side. This would be the best view of Adams that I got -- the weather was wet and cloudy the next two days, when I was on Adams itself and when I was in Goat Rocks Wilderness, from where there are great views looking back to the south.
The trunk of an enormous Douglas fir tree. Note my pack (which measures about 1.5 feet across) and 4-foot long trekking poles for context. Sadly there are not too many old growth trees left in the Northwest, where they used to be in abundance before they were logged and before people occasionally came to prioritize nature over their personal wants.
Navigating in Oregon and Washington was frequently difficult: in addition to the trail being buried by snow, the topography was not obviously featured (so I could never just shoot up/down a drainage and trust that I'll re-find the trail at some point) and the forest was too thick to make cross-country travel more efficient than always staying on the hard-to-locate trail.
Travel through a few sections in Washington -- namely Goat Rocks Wilderness, pictured here, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, and Glacier Peak Wilderness -- resembled mountaineering more than they did backpacking.
In the southern part of Goat Rocks Wilderness. Note the small patch of visible trail in the bottom center of the photo.
The Knife's Edge in Goat Rocks Wilderness. Note the location of the trail -- on the spine of the ridge. This photo was taken in a brief period of visibility -- most of the day, including when I had to walk across the Packwood Glacier, on the peak's right side, it was fully clouded-in.