August 20
Before I get to day one, I will set the day up.
Before I get to day one, I will set the day up.
We had put in our application in the spring when the lottery opened on the Rainier Wonderland trail website. We were hoping to get our itinerary approved and get our Wilderness permit. Alas, we were denied. So we thought it through and decided to try for a walk up permit later in the summer. As the months went on and we began hearing trail reports about 2 deaths at river crossings (one on the Northern loop west fork of the White river and one on the Winthrop glacier creek crossing), I told my husband I wasn't interested anymore unless we heard that the bridges were all repaired and with hand rails in place. So we scrapped our plans and begin thinking about in and out trips in the Rainier area. Shortly after the deaths at the river crossings amazingly the bridges on the Wonderland trail had been replaced and hand rails reportedly been added. As soon as I heard that I told my husband I was interested, I felt like I had it in me to accomplish it again, even though it had been 30 years since I'd last hiked around it.
We did the Wonderland trail as a couple for the first time in 1975, the two week period of our 4th wedding anniversary.
The photo below was taken on that trip on Skyscraper ridge.
We did it a few more times after that with our kids and other relatives. I had done it 3 times and my husband had done it 5 times. Each of those trips we had done the alternate route that included Seattle and Spray parks. So this time we decided to do the "real" Wonderland trail loop. We packed up and headed to the White River ranger station on Monday the 20th, hopeful to get some of the itinerary that my husband had put together.
We picked dates that would allow us to be on the trail for our 47th wedding anniversary. We got to the station at about 2:30 in the afternoon, there wasn't a line for the permits, so we went up to the desk and asked for our camps and dates. We were hoping for a 10 night, 11 day trip. The first camp we wanted was Mystic lake after a hike in from Sunrise. That didn't work, so we then asked for Sunrise camp from White River, that one worked. From then on we got every camp we wanted. Now, it would be a 11 night, 12 day trip.
Goose bumps galore!
We found a campsite at White river campground for the night and began assembling our packs and cache for the next day.
We planned for one cache drop at Longmire. Our plan was to pick it up on our Anniversary before spending the night at the Cougar Rock campground on day 8 of our journey. We got up Tuesday morning the 21st to drop off our cache. We had a nice view of Rainier as we made our way to Longmire.
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| my husband with our cache |
Then it was drive back to White river campground, get our packs on and head up the trail to our first night's campsite.
We moved our car to the Wilderness parking lot and got our packs on.
August 21, day one
White River campground to Sunrise camp.
Ready to head up the hill.
I'm full of nerves and expectations at the trail head.
A bit of smoke in the air, created a hazy view of Rainier.
Trail sign near the camp.
Camp set up!
Shadow lake near our camp.
Relive video of our route:
Garmin stats:
total miles - 3.91 miles
total ascent - 1978 feet
total descent - 256 feet
Day 2 to be continued
