Hears Different Drummer

Monday, September 3, 2018

Wonderland trail: Day 2 of 12

August 22, day 2
Sunrise camp to Mystic lake.
I was glad that we had hiked up to Sunrise camp from White River campground to start our trip, instead of doing it at the end of our trip as we had planned. My legs cramped up a bit that night from the constant up with the weight of the backpack, first day woes. I do have issues with cramping and take Salt Sticks and have Nuun in my hydration bladder when I do long activities, especially when it's warm. We also learned a little trick from our Spartan races, a shot of mustard neutralizes the nerves and helps the cramps go away quite quickly. My husband brought a small bottle in his pack. It helped alot that first night,

We slept with our rain fly off it was dry so we didn't worry about getting wet, but boy did I get cold whenever I peeked my head out of my sleeping bag.

We woke to a nice sunny blue sky, packed up and headed out to the trail junction.
My husband's shadow near the trail sign.

Marmot crossing.

Marmot eating

Mount Rainier looming as we made our way to the Skyscraper ridge trail.

We passed several goats near the trail as we walked along.

Looking down towards Berkeley park.

We stopped at this creek for a rest break and water fill before heading up to Skyscraper ridge. We use a SteriPEN for our water purifying. It's been dependable for us.

Looking back as we crested the ridge.

Heading down the other side towards Granite creek, a slightly hazy view of Mount Rainier.

We stopped at Granite creek for our lunch break.

I enjoy documenting all of the log/bridges on our creek/river crossings. This one was a bit narrow for my liking with a full pack on my back.

So lush and green.

We hiked down alongside Winthrop Glacier, as you can see it's covered with debris. As we walked along we could hear chunks of debris falling off and tumbling down the side.

Time to cross the Winthrop creek bridge. This is the main one that I was worried about before the death a person a few weeks earlier. At that time it was lower on one end and slightly tilted with NO hand rail, during high water the creek was going over the low end. I was glad to see that it had been raised a bit, turned and a hand rail added.

My husband crossing the bridge.

Hand rail in place, needless to say this made all of the difference for me.

There is an interesting area between the two sides of the hills that we got to hike in, some of it follows this dry spine through a sparse forest. I always enjoy this section. As you can see there is still a bit of smoke in the air.

I liked the artistic curve to this handrail,

Mystic camp.

The Mystic lake ranger came to our camp to check on our permit and visited with us for quite a while. He was very nice, I enjoyed our visit with him. He was part of the search and recovery effort for the fellow that fell in at Winthrop creek bridge, so he filled us in on what was done to the bridge to make it more passable. Thanks to "James" and his bridge crew, we really appreciate your efforts.

Relive video or of route:

https://youtu.be/f2v9Mqf3wAw

Garmin stats:
total miles hiked - 9.11
total ascent - 2110 feet
total descent - 2956 feet

Day 3 to be continued

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Wonderland trail: Day 1 of 12

August 20
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.