5/21, Friday. I met with Derek from Lake Forest Park at 6pm, traffic in Seattle, and more traffic on I-90 10 miles before the pass (due to construction: 2 left lanes were closed), we arrived at the registration tent ~7:40pm! Guye Cabin, property of Washington Alpine Club, is right by the highway, but hidden in the woods, so you don't see it. Parking lot is large enough for a dozen big vehicles. 
From the front door and up: entry way (2 benches and storage), a bathroom fronted with a ping-pong table, and a shower (works!), kitchen with eating area, boots-off area, library with multiple couches and a ceiling fan, door to the outside deck, family dorm, female dorm, male dorm. There's only one other girl in the female dorm. I dropped my bag on a bed close to the window. There are 16 beds with little room between each, vinyl covered mattress, hooks on top. My roommate, Oceana, is hiking PCT southbound in a week. Went to the kitchen to get some left-over food from the fridge. Not many people stay overnight in the lodge. PCTA employees are staying at the hotels. Some people camped outside (I saw 2 tents). Around 9pm someone brought out 4 pies: marionberry, blueberry, apple, cherry. I stayed in the library until 11pm. I brought a book -- totally unnecessary. The library has a lot of books, most on climbing/hiking.
5/22, Saturday. Up at 6:30am, when breakfast starts. When I went to the kitchen ~7, hot food wasn't yet ready, cereal + mile, coffee and standard crappy lunch bar was laid out. I packed sandwich for lunch. 3 casseroles: egg with ground meat, egg with something else, spinach with potato and cheese (quite good).
7:30 announcement at the fire-ring, and we had a raffle (as usual, I didn't win anything). 4 classes today. My camp-cooking class is small: only 5 students. Many handouts. Tonia, our volunteer instructor, is also in charge of this weekend's meal. I'm surprised to know that this weekend's budget is $20/day/pp. Seems rather high. There's a lot of preparation needed, survey dietary need/allergy, plan out a week long menu, shopping. How to layout the camp, dig a latrine and sump, store food and utensil, washing. Since we were in the kitchen, I ate yesterday's tuna salad for lunch. Sun broke out, and we moved the class outside. We planned a week-long mock menu, discuss the pro and con of each.
We finished before 3pm. Wasted some time contemplating on what to do before the dinner at 6pm. Finally went to Kendall Katwalk trail, without hiking pole, and ~1/3L of water. The trailhead is close by. I started ~3:30pm. 
Typical to PCT, the trail is well graded, fairly flat. At 2 miles (~45 min), hit the boundary of Alpine Lakes Wilderness. The view opens up a bit, a short boulder field, a lot of bleeding hearts, strong scent of false solomon's seal, even a few trillium. The rocky trail goes slowly down until a small waterfall in 15 min. Soon junction with Commonwealth Basin trail. Keep right. Unfortunately, all in the woods now. Another talus field, back in trees again. Reached a ridge (~4 mile) by 5pm, a couple of small snow patches. Some beargrass. Trail follows the ridge to the left, but too many trees and clouds to see anything interesting. I got bored, and turned around at 5:20pm. Probably 5 miles in, so just 1 mile shy of the catwalk, supposed to have great views on a clear day. No view view on the way back: clouds too thick.
Back at the kitchen at 7pm, leftover shrimp yakisoba (also a gluten free version), miso soup, spinach sesame ball. All quite good. At 7:20, dinner was cleared away. A lady took the whole tray of the gluten free yakisoba home. ~8pm, 5 different ice cream boxes and sugar cones, and leftover pies. I took a shower today, good hot water. Went to bed ~10pm, maybe the last one awake. Still two of us in the female dorm.5/23, Sunday. Rain at night, light rain in the morning. Breakfast burrito with some leftover. I packed the shrimp yakisoba for lunch. Another morning raffle, in the rain.
My power-brushing class has only 3 students, 4 no-shows. Karen, the photographer, decided to join us. Bigfood Jim (tail name on his 2012 thru-hike) is our instructor, Ray the assistant. We first learned to replace the blade in the entry. Then we drove to Silver Peak TH, less than 6 miles away, but took ~35 minutes. The road is gravel with some rough sections. We had 2 saws, a garden rake, a lopper, 2 pitch forks. We wear head protection with hard mask, ear muffs (too loose, I use soft ear plugs), safety glasses. A harness to hook the saw on. I initially used too much of my arms, as they got sore quickly. The saw works very well. We used other tools to toss the debris we generated off the trail.We stopped ~1pm, and was the first class who got back. By then, the rain had stopped. I'm actually grateful for the gloomy weather today, otherwise it would be too hot without shade. Waited for Derek's class to finish, and then Danny, who wants a ride to Seattle. Tonia laid out leftovers for us to take. I took more yakisoba and some nuts.
No traffic on I-90 early afternoon. Traffic in downtown Seattle. Danny claimed no cash, so cheated out a free ride. He was heading to downtown for a date with a girl from Internet. We were dropped off at Westlake. I blend well with the homeless crowd with a big backpack :)
