[McPilchuck]

Necklace Valley Trek before the establishment of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness: http://www.alpinequest.com/camps.htm http://www.alpinequest.com/coffee.htm

[salish]

Wow, McPilchuck, does that take me back! I never made it up into the Necklace Valley back then, but I hiked around lot's of other lakes in the district, and Stevens Pass. I bought the 1972 Don MCune video of the TB trip to Necklace this past January and I've practically worn the tape out from watching it so often and I always pine for the old days when I see it. There is a whole generation that has grown up without knowing the freedoms you have described so well. I feel fortunate in having been able to experience our mountains in the good old days. By the same token, I know that it's necessary and desirable to have much of our wilderness regulated like it wasn't back then. Just too many people and damage. Some flashbacks you'll be able to identify with: getting sh##faced with your buddies and closing the bar, and then on a dare heading home for your packs and hitting the trail at 5am; at the TH, huge orange external framed packs so heavy you had to sit on your bumper and have your friends help you load it on your back. And in the pack, 1 quart cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and a sixpack of Rainier, fiberglass fishing rods in long tubes (who could afford a pack rod?) and Mitchell 300 reels, WWII GI mess kits, and no stove or tent. Ah, the good old days...tired, hungry & cold most of the time! I'm going to try and squeeze a Necklace Valley trip in this September, after I go to the Enchantments. Thanks for the stroll down memory lane. Cliff

[McPilchuck]

You are quite welcome Cliff. those were the good o'l days for sure, but these days are good hiking days as well, especially with all the high tech gear we all now can buy. However, there is one thing today that we had back then that we don't have today...more solitude as there were less people on the trails and in the mountains...something today's generation dosn't expeience much in our overpopulated state now. On this trip, even though it had a good trail to it, we saw "nobody." Can you imagine 5 days in Necklace Valley without seeing a soul today? Not in a million years, unless perhaps it's solid rain the entire time. I feel blessed sometimes (like you and some others like IBEX here) for having been able to hike and climb the Cascades & Olympics in decades past in a different world. One certainly can't go back, but the memories and the pictures are still fresh and the stories still grand...