Wonderland trail 2019 Day twelve Summerland camp to White River CG

Our last day on the Wonderland trail, so many thoughts and emotions. Will I ever do this whole loop again? Do I really want to do the whole loop again? Will I be capable of doing the loop again. Yes I know we can always do parts of it at a time, but the whole thing? All I know is that my heart is here in this place.

We didn't rush out of camp on this last day. We put our things together and I silently said goodbye to this place of so many memories as we made our way down the trail.

Views of Rainier from Summerland.

Rainier views from behind us as we headed down the trial.

Bridge crossings and back to forest walking.

At the junction of the trail, our turn goes to the White River campground the other to the Fryingpan creek trailhead. 

Once again we hike through a Vanilla leaf forest.

Our last river crossing - White River.

A view of Rainier from the river bed.

We asked someone to take a photo of us as we finished just before the parking lot.

We completed it again, 5 times for me and 7 times for my husband.

We drove up to Sunrise for a dinner and shopped at the gift store/Visitor center before driving away.
Our souvenir, A Mount Rainier puzzle.

Mount Rainier from the Sunrise road.

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/FFeq_4lx4fU

Garmin Stats:

7.14 miles

535 feet ascent

2087 feet descent

Elevation profile:

Trip summary:

We saw 4 bear, several Marmots and Elk, Pika and Mountain Goats. Hardly any Mosquitoes (hurray)

We had zero blisters on our feet!

We were usually on the trail between 5 and 6 hours each day, not counting water, rest and snack breaks. We stopped every 20 minutes for water breaks/standing rest breaks. We were usually in camp by 5 or 6 pm except for Devil's Dream, that was a long day. We got there a little before dark.

Trip summary:

104.42 - miles

26,182 feet - ascent

26,668 feet - descent 

Elevation profile:

I would like to thank my husband again for being my trainer, my guide, my sherpa, my encourager and my support. He did the meal planning, food carrying (we use a bear canister), water filtering, cooking and best of all the rain water diverting. Also, for the many fun nights spent in Patrick McManus’ world before we fell asleep,  *he read from “The Grasshopper Trap” every night. Without his efforts this trip could not have happened or been as fun as it was.

Start

and end 

We did it once again❤️ 

A lot of it was just plain hard work with aching muscles & bones at night, but the highs were oh so high - emotionally & literally.