Wonderland trail 2019 Day four Cataract Valley camp to Mowich lake camp

I was so excited today. Today we get to hike through one of my favorite places on the trail - Seattle and Spray parks❤, but first some good uphill hiking.

Seattle park, a place of flowers and water❤

The sun was so bright the water glowed.

Then the rocks and views of the alpine.

Not too much snow to cross at the top, no Yaktrax or Microspikes needed.

The saddle cairn marker.

How many times can a person's breath be taken away by the view of Mount Rainier? Apparently too many times to count. I could have stayed there all day.

Looking towards Spray park.

Spray park a place of Mount Rainier views, wildflowers and wide open spaces. I left a part of my heart there.

As we were making our way out of the meadow my husband spied a bear on the far hillside. I don't know how he noticed it. We got out the binoculars and saw a large bear. In the photo it's in the center and to the left of the white creek line going down the hill. I don't have a big pricey camera, my zoom wasn't able to capture it in detail. Pardon my attempts and quality of photos.

Zoomed in still blurry and out of focus, but great through our binoculars😁. We talked to a ranger later and found out that the large male is a resident of the Spray park area. Lucky us 3 bear sightings so far this year.

A heart rock on the forest trail towards Mowich lake.

Coral root

Our last uphill of the day, Mowich camp!

We found a site for our camp and my husband went to the patrol cabin to retrieve our cache. We were very excited that it had indeed been brought up from the Carbon River ranger station.

Our cache❤

Thankful for the sun, time to dry out our sweaty/damp camp things.

Time to organize our new items from the cache and repack our packs.

Mowich lake❤

When we got to the lake we noticed an "aid" station set up near the camp area. I follow Aspire Adventurerunning company on Instagram and realized that this was the weekend of their first "all women" group running around the mountain. It was fun to watch them come running in one at a time throughout the evening. I loved how the support tent looked at night. What a fun group.

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/2yfLU-WLVXQ

Garmin stats:

7.81 miles

2346 ascent

1896 descent

Elevation profile:

Trip summary:

28.83  - miles

8,261 feet - ascent 

7869 feet - descent

Elevation profile:

Wonderland trail 2019 Day three Mystic lake GC to Cataract Valley camp

This morning we had more fun with our group camp roomies. He decided to dump more food, "literally" from his pack. About a half dozen top Ramen packs minus the plastic wraps were dumped in a pile in the dirt. My husband told him that was unacceptable and that he needed to pick it up and put it in his trash bag. I won't tell you where he eventually put it but it wasn't in his "pack it out" trash bag. This really set a disturbance into my morning. Needless to say I was glad when they left camp, so we could enjoy our solitude. I felt badly for the young boy as the man had set an aggressive mileage trip for the boys' first backpacking adventure. I hope he survived and will find a love for hiking and backpacking into his adult life.

We stopped by Mystic lake to enjoy the view.

Looking back to the lake❤

Climbing up the saddle from Mystic lake I stopped and asked my husband to take photo of me.

More wildflowers.

Over the saddle to the meadow.

Views and wildflowers what could be better!

We stopped by the stream for a lunch break.

We arrived at Dick creek and it's rope climb, uneventful until I tripped on the rocks after the log bridge😏

Making our way down the Carbon river trail

and across the Suspension bridge.

Views from the bridge.

Time for my husband to cross, as the sign says it's a one at a time crossing.

This side of the river was so lush and green compared to the rocky hike down the other side. I felt like we had come into a fairy land. So beautiful!

It's a steep high step trail to Cataract Valley camp.

I was very happy to see this sign.

I giggled my way to sleep to the sounds of my husband reading from the Patrick McManus book "The grasshopper trap" & to the two very giggly young women in the site across from us.

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/wcGM3-G9BWA

Garmin stats:

8.03 miles

1936 ascent

2887 descent

Elevation profile:

Trip summary:

21.02 - miles

5915 feet - ascent

5971 feet - descent

Elevation profile: