Hears Different Drummer

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Wonderland trail 2019 Day eleven Indian Bar camp to Summerland camp

When I opened the tent door I was happy to see a little brightness in the sky. Hopefully we would have views as we made our way up to Panhandle gap, the highest point on the Wonderland trail.

The aftermath photo,

we came out pretty well considering how much it had rained that night. You can see the trenches he dug out. They did their job! We stayed absolutely dry inside our tent.

As I was looking around at our camp that morning, I noticed these gouges in this tree. Hmm, from bear?

Trying to dry out our boots before we put them on, they got pretty wet during yesterday's hike.

Flowers near our campsite.

A little brighter view of the shelter today even though the fog was still low.

Making our way through the Ohanapecosh cirque river valley.

Wildflowers along the trail for today's climb.

A look at where we'd come from with a view of the shelter in the valley below.

The trail kept going up so we took a nice rest break and watched the clouds move in and out briefly giving us views of a half dozen Elk in the distance below. I was pleased that I felt much better on this section of the trail this year.

The Elk were in the tree area below, we watched them for awhile with our binoculars.

One last look at Ohanapecosh before we turned to begin our trek towards Panhandle gap.

We were hiking in the fog again.

It was so nice to see the blue sky peeking in and out of the fog.

Flowers and a Marmot

Finally some views!

Very little snow to cross today.

If you enlarge the photo below you'll see goats on the hillside. Easily seen with our binoculars.

Panhandle gap.

Just like that we made the turn and were heading down to Summerland camp, after picking our way through the rocky trail.

Another small snow crossing.

A nice view of Mount Rainier and the turquoise colored lake below.

In the distance a creek crossing and the Summerland shelter.

The log crossing

A view up the creek

The view as I crossed

Almost to camp!

A view of Rainier as we make our way to Summerland.

Sun means drying out time on the trail, we were lucky enough to get the same camp we did last year. It's great for spreading our gear out! Everything was dry by the time we put it away.

We walked out to the trail junction to take an evening photo of the mountain. Our last night on the trail, so many feelings and emotions.

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/yk_J6LBZVrc

Garmin stats:

5.09 miles

2001 feet ascent

1562 feet descent

Elevation profile:

Trip summary:

97.28 - miles

25,647 feet - ascent

24,581 feet - descent

Elevation profile:

Friday, September 6, 2019

Wonderland trail 2019 Day ten Maple Creek GC to Indian Bar camp

Today we get to go to one of my favorite places on the Wonderland trail - Indian Bar. Last year it was foggy and rainy and the views were non existent. I was hopeful for better this year.

Looking tired, but ready for today's journey.

Walking through extra large ferns, they gave it a tropical feel.

A couple of creek side walks & creek bridge crossings today.

Looking down at the road through Box canyon. We were standing on top of the tunnel.

The view down below the highway.

There are garbage cans and restrooms at the parking lot, woo hoo real toilets and a place to get rid of our garbage! Simple pleasures - those places are golden on the trail. Another road crossing and then we make our way up the Cowlitz Divide and on to Indian Bar camp for the night.

A look back at our area of opportunity.

The views began to look very similar to last years, not too promising😥. It was interesting that this trip and last year's had pretty similar weather at the same locations.

Shaggy Mane mushroom.

Time to put on the backpacker ponchos.

The plants were collecting rain drops.

Even though it was foggy and rainy with no views the flowers were in bloom and visible beside the trail.

Looking up to where we needed to go. My right inner quad felt as if it were going to cramp as we made our way up the last uphill section, but I was ready as I was last year and began to take in some mustard to help my muscles. It worked! I had no real cramping up this section this year, just a couple of twinges.

My happy place❤??

This hill top is usually a place of wonderful views, for two years in a row this is what we saw - white fog.

Beautiful flowers in the fog.

Western Pasque flower.

These flowers remind me of the Truffula trees in the Dr. Seuss book "The Lorax".

It was so foggy we didn't even see the Indian bar shelter until we were across from it. It's usually visible most of the way down the hill to camp.

The bridge to camp.

We got our tent set up. My husband got water, filtered it and made dinner while I set up the inside of the tent. Before, during and after dinner he dug trenches around the tent as it had began to rain very hard. The area near our tent filled up like a small lake so he created a drain for it to run out before he came to bed. His clothes were wet when he came in the tent. He actually just went to bed as he was, that's the key to good camping gear they dried out fairly quickly. I'm so thankful for everything that he did that night.

We fell asleep to the sound of rain falling on our tarp in our dry tent.