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Wonderland Trail

8 days in the wilderness of Mt. Rainier

By Adventures Not Vacations

September 22^nd, 2015

Day 1

Longmire → South Puyallup River

(11.1 Miles, Start: 2700 ft., High: 5600 ft., End: 4000 ft.)

We woke up bright and early around 5:30 AM to make it to the trailhead to get our permit and start our epic 8 day journey around Mt. Rainier. After months of anticipation, we were finally doing it. We’d finally be thru-hiking the Wonderland Trail.

We started out at the Longmire visitor center and began climbing up towards Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground. Along the way, we crossed Pyramid Creek, the first of many glacial streams we’d encounter. After more climbing, we finally made it to Indian Henry’s. The sky was overcast and we couldn’t see the mountain, but the meadows were gorgeous. It was here we met our first Wonderlanders. They were hiking the opposite direction as us and had gotten caught in a big rainstorm the night before. Lucky for them, their next night was at the National Park Inn where they could warm up and dry off.

We continued along a ridge for some time, before descending down to Tahoma Creek. The trail crosses the creek on a monstrous suspension bridge. Signs on the bridge suggested one person at a time and I’m glad that Meghan and I heeded it’s advice. The bridge was very wobbly.

After the bridge, we began the climb up Emerald Ridge. This section of the trail was gorgeous, as it followed the path of a glacial river. You could tell the trail here was constantly evolving from landslides caused by erosion. The weather cleared a little and we got our first views of the mountain.

After cresting Emerald Ridge, we went down to the South Puyallup River camp for our first night on the trail. The camp was flanked by huge andesite columns on one side and the rushing river on the other. We cooked dinner beneath the columns and got ready for bed. After 4000 feet of climbing, we were tired. I had a bit of a sore throat and was worried about getting sick on the trail. We went to bed so early, we didn’t even need to use our headlamps.

Day 2

South Puyallup River → Golden Lakes

(11.5 Miles, Start: 4000 ft., Low: 2605 ft., High: 6000 ft., End: 4929 ft.)

After a good night’s rest, I woke up feeling much better. We made our first breakfast of bacon and hash browns and got ready for the second day on the trail. After crossing the South Puyallup, we immediately started climbing towards St. Andrews Park and the lake of the same name. Luckily, the cloudy skies from the day before lifted and we had amazing views. This was an angle of Mt. Rainier we don’t get to see from our apartment in Seattle.

After getting water from St. Andrews Lake, we headed to Klapatche Park. This was a very dry area of the trail and the lake was one of the only places to get fresh water. When we arrived at Klapatche Park, the small lake/pond at the camp was almost totally dried up. It was a beautiful camp area though, with stunning views of Mt. Rainier.

Descending down to the North Puyallup River, I was stung four times by bees! As we were hiking, I felt an incredible burning sensation surround my right leg and not go away. I looked down and saw a swarm of bees buzzing around my leg. I screamed “BEES!” and tried to run down the trail, nearly shoving Meghan down the steep slope next to us. As the pain faded, I found four red spots all around my leg.

After the long descent, we stopped at the North Puyallup River and had lunch. There used to be a road that came up this far on the mountain and we sat on the wall of an old bridge with amazing views. We laid out our tent to dry out the dew from the night before while we made peanut butter tortillas.

It was good to fuel up, because we had a long steady climb ahead of us to get to Golden Lakes. The climb took us up through the woods and hikers told us they had seen bears. We didn’t see any bears, but soon enough we made it to the lakes.

The Golden Lakes camp is nearby one of the bigger lakes in the group, with an old ranger cabin right on the shore. While setting up camp, a ranger came by to check our permit and he showed us the best place for getting water at the lake. We brought our food and stove and cooked dinner while we filtered water. It was a great end to day two. After the sun went down, you could see the lights of Seattle off in the distance.

Day 3

Golden Lakes → Mowich Lake

(10.2 Miles, Start: 5130 ft., Low: 2605 ft., End: 4929 ft.)

We were excited to get going on day 3 because our destination, Mowich Lake, was where one of our food caches was. We had stashed a large meal of chili and pasta along with a six pack of beer. There was also a great lake we could splash around in and clean the few days of grime off of ourselves.

The hike started by passing through the rest of the Golden Lakes. It was a nice flat start to the day with good views of pretty lakes. We soon began descending down to South Mowich River. Today would bring another bee attack, as Meghan got stung once on our way down. Once we arrived at the river, we found one of the bridges nearly washed out and a huge rock bed carved out by the glacial melt. We sat on the edge of the river and had lunch. It was the last of the food we had carried from the start.

Pushed on by the promise of food and swimming, we reached Mowich Lake by 2 PM. Mowich Lake is a car camping campground, so we got a nice picnic table and had lots of neighbors. We picked up our food cache at the ranger station and got in the lake. We did our best to wash our clothes and clean our bodies. I felt weird hanging out at the lake in just my underwear, but with the sunshine and beautiful views, it was easy to put it out of my mind.

After drying our clothes, we headed back up to the campsite to make dinner. We met a few more Wonderlanders who had just arrived. They asked where the hiker box was and one of the families camping nearby overheard. The family misinterpreted their question and thought the two girls were running out of food! Out of concern, they offered them dinner and then later s’mores. We ended up camping with those girls for most of the rest of the trip. Another group of Wonderlanders, a family of four, was on day 14 of their trip and would be finishing the next day. Somehow they managed to squeeze themselves into one single tent.

We ate our hearty meal and enjoyed the sunset down by the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous with beautiful colors and a glassy smooth lake. We fell asleep to one of our neighbors softly strumming his guitar.

Day 4

Mowich Lake → Mystic Lake

(13.4 Miles, Start: 4929 ft., Low: 2300 ft., High: 6000 ft., End: 5570 ft.)

From Mowich Lake, there are two possible ways to do the Wonderland Trail. You can stay on the traditional Wonderland and go over Ipsut Pass and walk along the Carbon River, or you can take the Spray Park alternate route and head through the meadows of Spray Park. The week before our trip, Meghan and I drove up to Mowich Lake to drop off our food cache and we did part of Spray Park as a day hike. We opted to take the traditional route over Ipsut Pass.

We got an early start and had a short climb to the pass. As we came around a corner, the trail opened up between a rock and some trees giving us one of my favorite views of the trip. I felt like we had the whole valley completely to ourselves. It was pretty amazing.

We dropped down into the valley and eventually into thick woods. We followed the trail up the Carbon River and found the trail washed out. We followed a short detour onto the Northern Loop trail and made our way back to the Wonderland. After a good amount of climbing, we reached the Carbon Glacier. It’s the lowest elevation glacier in the lower 48. We had a snack before starting the long and grueling climb to Mystic Lake.

The climb was long and hot as we got up above the trees. Halfway through the climb, we stopped at the Dick Creek camp for lunch. It was a small campsite right on the edge of a cliff. Rumor has it that a mountain lion was sighted nearby a few days before we were there. The lunch provided some shade and a much needed break.

We continued up towards Mystic Lake and after what felt like an eternity, we made it to Moraine Park. It’s a beautiful open meadow with huge views of Mt. Rainier. It made the climb worth it. At that point we thought we were done climbing and just had a small descent to the lake. We were wrong.

After crossing the meadow, we had the unfortunate surprise of one more sharp steep climb. It felt like a punch in the face after what was already our hardest day. That wasn’t the end of it for fun surprises on the trail though. We finally made it to the lake before getting our last surprise. The camp was 0.2 miles past the lake. As I expressed my exasperation at this, someone coming up the trail shouted out “And it’s a HARD 0.2 miles!” That person was right, the camp was down a steep hill.

We ran down hoping to get a good campsite before heading back to hang out and cook at the lake. We set up camp and I packed my bag full of everything we’d need for a few hours at the lake. We swam some more in a very shallow lake. About 100 yards out into the lake it was still only waist deep.

As we were cooking dinner, a ranger came by and invited us to his cabin to watch the sunset. The cabin had a view of Mt. Rainier while the lake’s view was blocked by Mineral Mountain. We walked the quarter mile (away from camp) to the cabin and sat on the porch with the ranger and two other park employees to watch the sunset. We got there just as the colors on the mountain turned beautiful. We listened to stories from the ranger and then walked back to our tent in the dark.

Day 5

Mystic Lake → White River

(12.7 Miles, Start: 5570 ft., High: 6600 ft., End: 4300 ft.)

After our hardest day, we were happy to start without a climb. We dropped down again to another glacial river and had a bit of excitement on the way. We saw a bear! It was lumbering towards us on the trail paying little attention to us. Rather than screaming and running, we kept our wits about us and yelled at the bear to get off the trail. After what felt like a lot of yelling and waving, the bear slowly veered off the trail and continued past us. It really didn’t seem to care that we were there.

We crossed the river and started another climb up out of the woods. Stopping for a snack along the trail, we ran into a couple we had camped with since our first night. We found out we would be walking ahead of them and wouldn’t be staying at the same sites anymore.

Continuing up out of the woods, we were greeted with great views of Skyscraper Mountain, a peak we had climbed a few summers before. The views of Mt. Rainier were spectacular here and we stopped to take some pictures. We were getting close to the Sunrise visitor center and started seeing more and more people. We even saw the couple we met on our first day of the trail.

When we got to Frozen Lake, a reservoir for the nearby visitor center, a woman stopped us and said there was a bear over the hill. What luck! Two bears in one day! We excitedly ran over the hill and saw a young bear eating in the meadow. There were two hikers on the trail near the bear that ended up being the girls we met at Mowich Lake. We walked down and decided to walk past the bear cub together, in case the mom was around.

We kept on hiking and made it to Sunrise Camp and Shadow Lake. There were lots of tourists around since we were so close to the visitor center. We stopped for lunch along the shore of the lake before starting the last few miles to White River campground. The campground was the other place we had cached food, so we were excited for a big dinner and the luxury of running water!

We got the campsite and used the water fountain to get water and wash our clothes. It was getting late in the day and we laid out our clothes on the campgrounds amphitheater benches to dry. Some of the benches even had backs, so we lounged on them while we looked at our map and planned for the next day. We cooked our lunch of summer sausage and macaroni and cheese before heading down to the river to enjoy the sunset.

As we headed down to the river, we found that the bridge there was washed out. That means we had a 1 mile road walk to the next Wonderland trailhead. We took some pictures and sat on the rocks while we heard the thunder of the shifting river rocks. It was a beautiful place to spend the evening.

Day 6

White River → Indian Bar

(11.2 Miles, Start: 4300 ft., High: 6600 ft., End: 5120 ft.)

One thing we were really looking forward to in the White River cache was our pancake mix. We would be having pancakes for breakfast the rest of the trip and it was a pretty luxurious way to start the day when you’re backpacking. We almost never have pancakes when we’re at home. Unfortunately, it looked like it was going to be a little bit cloudy that day.

The next section of the trail was one I did on one of my very first hikes after moving to Washington and I knew how pretty it was. I was happy to find that after our mile long road walk and a small bit of climbing, the weather had cleared and it became a beautiful sunny day. We had a pretty easy climb to Summerland and we stopped at the shelter and had lunch. Chipmunks were running around, obviously used to all the campers having food. While we were looking around the campsites, we saw a helicopter land up on Mt. Rainier near Camp Schurman.

We eventually decided it was time to leave and we began to hike up towards Panhandle Gap. This section of the trail is the highest elevation and one of the only sections where you really enter the alpine. This was also the only section of the trail that had any ice/snow even close by. Up before the gap we saw a few tarns of varying colors. One was green, one was yellow, and one was red. Near the largest, a family of mountain goats was feeding on the few plants that lived up that high. Lots of people stopped to take pictures while we continued on.

The clouds were thick on the other side of Panhandle Gap and it felt like we were walking into Mordor. As we reached the top of the pass, we were in the clouds. A different family of mountain goats was coming down a ridge and we watched them for a few minutes. As we watched, the clouds lifted and we were greeted with incredible views of Ohanapecosh Park and far off Mt. Adams. We even had some views of Mt. Hood in Oregon. The family of goats we were watching went onto the trail and we had to shoo them away before continuing on.

After crossing the beautiful valley, we were greeted with a view of Indian Bar. You could see a large shelter in a huge meadow next to a perfect stream. We went down the steep trail to the valley floor and set up camp. It was a little disappointing that our site didn’t have a good view, so we once again packed up our cooking gear and set up in the shelter by the river.

In the shelter, we met another hiker on an overnight trip. He was a high school teacher and a hobby photographer. He spent most of the day setting up his camera equipment and taking photos. We both talked and cooked dinner, enjoying the sunset. Right as the sun was dropping behind the mountains, we watched a herd of elk come down and cross the valley. The perfect end to a great day.

Day 7

Indian Bar → Maple Creek

(10 Miles, Start: 5120 ft., High: 5900 ft., End: 2815 ft.)

We awoke in the morning to a wet tent. It had rained during the night and while it wasn’t quite raining when we woke up, fog had rolled in soaking everything as you walked outside. Our friend from the day before had set up camp in the shelter for the night, something I wish we would have done. We decided to head back down to the shelter to dry off as much as we could and cook breakfast.The crappy weather had us in pretty low spirits, but I managed to get the heat setting on my stove low enough to cook perfect pancakes. We had a great breakfast, put on our pack covers and hit the trail.

Our hike started off with a climb into the clouds. You could barely see 100 feet in front of you. Epic views were not on the agenda for today. We passed a lot of people climbing up to Indian Bar that looked awfully disappointed that they wouldn’t be getting any views either. After a short climb, we started our descent to our final campsite, Maple Creek.

On the way down, we passed the Box Canyon trailhead. The canyon was pretty amazing. It was carved into the bedrock by a river and it was over 100 feet deep, but barely even 10 feet wide. We stopped for some pictures and saw several trail runners celebrating finishing the trail. They did the 93 miles in just 3 days. After a small lunch, we continued on, following close to the road. It was strange hearing cars when we were so far into the trail.

The final campsite at Maple Creek seemed like it might be a disappointment. We were down low on the mountain in thick forest. We didn’t expect to get much of a view. As we walked from site to site, trying to find the best one, we came out into a large meadowy opening with views of a ridge up above. It ended up being one of the best views from a campsite on the whole trip. Just as we arrived, the clouds finally lifted and the sun came out. We were able to dry out all of our gear before the last day.

We celebrated the last night on the trail with some libations and an extra large dinner. There were definite feelings of both excitement and sadness as we were close to the end of our long journey.

DAY 8

Maple Creek → Longmire

(12.9 Miles, Start: 2815 ft., Hight: 4850 ft., End: 2700 ft.)

On our last day, we slept in late (7 AM). It was amazing how fast our bodies had adjusted to the natural cycle of night and day. We cooked another luxurious breakfast of bacon and pancakes and prepared for an easy last day. We needed to climb up to Reflection Lakes and then descend back to Longmire. As we started our climb, the forest smelled like a campfire. While we were on the trail, the smoke from devastating wildfires in Northern Washington had drifted down to Mt. Rainier. You could see the haze filling the valleys of the park.

The trail followed near the road and we got closer and closer to civilization. We started seeing more people on the trail, many of them just hopping out of their cars for quick pictures with the mountain. We took a short detour to Louise Lake and enjoyed our last bit of solitude before we made it to the top of our climb, Reflection Lakes.

The lakes are the site of many classic Mt. Rainier photos. It was too windy for a reflection shot, but the skies were clear and we got amazing views of the mountain. You could even see a long line of climbers near the top of the summit. We ate our last lunch and headed down and away from the crowds at the lake.

We had one last surprise waiting for us on the trail. A group of friends told us they’d start towards the end of the trail and hike towards us, meeting us with food and beer. Every corner we turned, we expected to see them. Finally, just near the Paradise River camp, we heard the voices of people loud enough it could only be our friends. Sure enough, there they were. We had another passing hiker take our picture and instead of saying “Cheese!” he had us say “Trees!”

After hugs and high fives, we headed down to the river to hang out and share stories from the trail. It was actually a little overwhelming seeing so many friends again, after days with mostly just ourselves for company. It was a pretty amazing feeling though, having all those people go out of their way just to see us finish.

Eventually, once we had finished the food and drinks, and one of our friends fell in the river, we started our hike once again. After a couple miles, we made it to our friends cars. They left us to finish the last few miles to Longmire on our own.

We walked past countless day hikers and people camping at nearby Cougar Rock campground. It was pretty surreal to actually be finishing the trail. That’s when we saw the fork in the trail that marked the end of our journey. We slowed down, savoring every step. We did it. We were thru hikers.

Stats

22,000 ft. of elevation gain
93 miles
8 days
5 bee stings (Randall 4, Meghan 1)
2 food drops (Mowich Lake Campground, White River Campground)

Gear/FOOD

One great thing about backpacking with your girlfriend is that you can share all your gear. We took advantage of this by only carrying one tent (Sierra Designs Lightning 2) and one sleep system (Nemo Tango Duo). The sleep system was a quilt/slipcover that goes over two inflatable air mattresses (Big Agnes Air Core). We also both had seat pads (Therm-A-Rest Z Seat) that were great for resting on rocks or sitting down in camp.

For water, we had a gravity filter (MSR AutoFlow) that connected directly to our Nalgene bottles. This was great because we could bring up to 4 liters of dirty water to camp at a time and filter it as we needed it for drinking and cooking. We cooked with an isobutane stove (Snow Peak Gigapower) and one 8 oz can lasted us about 6 days. For pancakes and bacon, we used a lightweight frying pan (MSR Flex Skillet).

Dinner usually consisted of splitting a dehydrated meal (Alpine Aire mostly) and some instant rice or mashed potatoes. When we were staying at the campgrounds where we picked up food caches, we had larger meals since we didn’t have to carry them. For our first dinner on the trail, we made a stir fry using pre cooked chicken and fresh vegetables. Lunch was usually snacks like beef jerky, granola bars, and energy snacks. For breakfast, we had dehydrated hash browns, pancakes, bacon, and oatmeal. We supplemented that with applesauce packets and various granola bars.

We both used shoes from the Adidas Terrex line, which is a bit lighter weight than a typical hiking boot, but still waterproof. We also both used Black Diamond adjustable ski poles as trekking poles. They were great for stabilizing on creek crossings and saving your knees on downhills.

We used our phones as cameras (iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S) and we kept them charged using a Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar charger. It fit perfectly on the “brain” of my pack and on sunny days we’d get enough charge to top up our phones from about 70%. It got us through the whole trip. I also used another small battery pack to charge my Fitbit Charge HR.