Lake Ann Trailblazer hike

A wonderful and very warm hiking day for us Senior Trailblazers for our hike to Lake Ann.

Usually in the mountains we hike up at the start of our hikes and then the return trip to our cars is a welcome "up". This hike starts with a downhill through the forest, through a lovely opening with a few creek crossings and then up again to the lake. Then since it's an out and back trail, we reverse everything...hike down, enjoy the lovely opening and creek crossings and then finish with a nice shady forest "up" back to the cars. It was a long hike and a couple of our group stopped at about the 1/2 way point and said they would return to the cars and wait for us, another stopped short of the rocky area and headed back as well. The rest of us rallied on to the top for lunch before returning.

The scenery was in a word "glorious".

I thought the flowers below that had gone to seed looked very magical.

Mt. Baker in the distance

Lake Ann

Thanks to Leslie for getting this shot of me in front of Shuksan.

A perfect place for lunch, what a view.

I'm guessing it snowed here recently as all of the grass is flattened as if by a weight.

After a head count to make sure that we had all returned intact to the cars, we made our way to Graham's for the coveted ice cream at the end of our long day's hike.

Bliss!

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 8.7 miles

Minimum altitude - 3908 feet 

Maximum altitude - 4849 feet

Total ascent - 1853 feet

Total descent - 1852

Mount Rainier Vacation Part 1 - camp

Day one
We planned a 7 night 8 day vacation camping, hiking and possibly some backpacking on the Sunrise side of Mount Rainier. We had wanted to leave on Monday the 31st but our power was out during the big windstorm over the weekend. We packed and waited for our power to come back on & then did the last minute things that needed electricity and then we were off. The weather report called for rain and times but an improvement was likely. We brought rain, cold, warm weather gear. We wanted to be prepared for whatever the conditions were to be.

We drove to the White River campground, just below the Sunrise visitor center. 

A great sign meets you as you drive along the road to the campground pay entry station.

Click on the photo to read the words more clearly

There weren't many people in the campground so we had our pick of the sites. We got there at just about 7pm, plenty of time to set up our tent and cook up a nice hot dinner.

I loved the little green areas under the trees.

 Just across from our site was the ranger cabin. 

The Wonderland trail descends into the campground at this spot as well. They can either camp at the campground or continue on to Summerland.

Near the climbers/picnic parking lot is the trail marker for those on the Wonderland trail. This campground is a starting point for one of the climbing routes up Mount Rainer. The trail heads up to Camp Schurman and the Emmons glacier route. I found an interesting post about a group that climbed the mountain from this approach. If you like to read their story click HERE. It also has quite a few really nice photos of their climb.

Since this is a remote wilderness area and bear country, they have boxes to store food in if you don't have your own containers.

The ranger talk for the night was presented by ranger Carolyn, she did a great job even leading us in a few songs.

We settled in to our tent excited about heading out on a hike in the morning.