9.5 miles, 1800' gain, 2300' descent

What a delight this section of the PCT is! The 'crest' is of course a series of peaks rather than a single ridgeline, but the trail designers did a great job finding a route that traverses slopes and snakes across saddles from one side of the mountains to the other, gaining and losing small amounts of elevation along the way but mostly just moving sideways.

Most of the people I passed were chatty, and PCT backpackers turn my visual expectations upside down. I'm used to backpackers out for 2-10 nights being the slow ones carrying big packs laden with gear, while the fast moving people with small, light packs are day hikers. Here, though, the big-pack trudgers like me are here for a night by a lake or hiking the 28 mile PCT section between White Pass and Chinook Pass, but when someone zooms past me carrying seemingly nothing at all, that's a sign they started in Mexico and are on their way to the Canadian border. Thru-hiking the PCT in one summer is a race against the weather, so most travel fast and light in order to sustain 20+ mile days.

I found no water between Anderson Lake and Three Lakes, so carry plenty!

Turning off the PCT onto the Laughingwater Creek trail, it's a steep 1.8 mile descent into forest to Three Lakes camp. It was hot at camp so I took a siesta, then spent the rest of the afternoon reading. There were curiously few mosquitos here, but the flies were annoying. It was a noisy night, with foxes yelping around my tent, and at one point a banging noise, about every 10 seconds, from some distance away. I have no idea what this was - possibly a bear attempting to get my food down from the pole? Something moved one of my shoes (which I left outside the tent) during the night.