September 12th—White River Campground to Mystic Lake

Well, it looks like the tough weather is over. The forecast for the next couple days is a good one. The skies should be clear (or at least dry) and the temperatures warmer. I'm glad to have gotten a rest day, although it could have been more comfortable. At least my shoes are dry. That's a huge plus.

We brought too much food, so we're leaving a bunch of it here at the White River Campground. If there are any other hikers in need, the Ranger can hand it out to whomever he sees fit. It seems like bringing too much food along is a common mistake made by Wonderland hikers.

Today, we don't need to pack up our tent. It was never removed from its stuff sack. We just need to cook up some breakfast and load our back packs. It's a nice break. Only two more nights of unpacking and repacking.

As usual, we don't leave real early. Probably around 9:00. The switchbacks up to Sunrise are tough. My achilles tendon is hurting climbing the steep grade with my heavy pack, but my usual, frequent rests help. We're hoping for clear trails. There is still snow around and the trail is laced with puddles, but I'm really hoping to stay dry today. Partway to the top, we get a great view of the Northeast corner of The Mountain. We can see Little Tahoma, Steamboat Prow, and the largest glacier in the contiguous United States, the Emmons.

As we get near Sunrise, we hear what sounds like a generator. Probably someone roughing it in their RV at Sunrise. After climbing this pretty tough set of switchbacks, I need to rest a bit. A real rest, that is. The kind where I remove my pack, sit down, and eat. We stop at Sunrise Camp for probably 15 minutes. Of course, we study the map and figure out where we are, where we're going, and how many miles lie in between. Gotta love maps.

Tip:

You might be able to take too much food, but you can't take too much hot chocolate. Take at least one packet per day per hiker. If you're expecting cold weather, double it.

Thankfully, the going gets easier. Before long, we make it to the Burroughs Mountain trailhead. There's a couple from New Hampshire coming back from that trail. They didn't go too far on it as the snow has made it too slippery for comfort. Another couple is about to discover the same thing. We watch them look at the trail sign and head up toward the first Burroughs Mountain. Maybe they'll decide that it's not worth attempting the second or third. Matt and I will never find out, as we head on after a brief chat with the easterners. The coldness of the wind is somewhere between crisp and bitter, but we're on an exposed piece of land here.

The trail ahead looks good. That is to say it slopes downward. Of course, what goes down must come up. On down the trail a ways, we get to the bottom and have to begin heading up towards the next high point of today's hike, the saddle just below Skyscraper Mountain. On the way up, we meet Tom, the fellow we had met on the West side who was preparing to celebrate his 40th birthday. He has managed to hang on to his booze. Hopefully, he'll get to enjoy it with a friend when his birthday rolls around while at Summerland. He's still hiking in sandals.

Upon arriving at the base of Skyscraper Mountain, we meet a family of naturalists. The father and sun are both birders (they've actually written articles for the birding community) and the mother is some kind of research scientist, a statistician, I think.

I photograph The Mountain and a friendly marmot. A Ranger passes through while we're hanging out, toppling a cairn that had been built by well meaning, but ignorant, hikers.

Well, it's pretty much downhill from here, we think. Of course there are always little uphills, but we shouldn't have anything too tough ahead of us during the remainder of today's hike. We have a good downhill for the next couple miles and we pass some previous acquaintances heading uphill—Andrew, Nick, Owen, and Damien. They're pretty spread out as the climb is tough and they are at different levels of fitness. Sounds familiar. Thankfully, Matt is patient for our uphills.

A couple more rest stops at Granite Creek Camp and the foot of the Winthrop Glacier (good photo ops, both), and we're closing in on Mystic Lake Camp. After crossing over Winthrop Creek, things begin to get interesting. Talk about a lot of rocks. That's all we see. I wonder how many rocks there are in Mount Rainier National Park. There must be billions. Maybe even trillions. Anyway, there are a lot.

After crossing the river bed, we see a trail off to the right, but clearly someone doesn't want us to go that way. There are branches blocking the way to the right, but the trail goes on ahead, so we follow it forward. Clearly, this is a new trail. We see a hard hat, a rain coat, and other signs that there's work going on here. How do you get a chainsaw in here? That's gotta be some hike. We try to imagine the work involved in building a new trail. That's gotta be some work. We continue along the newly cut trail, trusting that it will lead us to the camp. Eventually, we get out the GPS because we lack faith...in ourselves, in the new trail. Moreover, when we get to an unnamed creek bed, we lose the trail. We hike a little bit too far up the creek, then find a cairn on the other side. The GPS tells us we're within a mile of the camp.

After finding the trail again, we continue onward. We fill up our water bottles as we near the camp. At least we think we're nearing the camp. The trail steepens some and I'm beginning to hope we're almost there. Today has been a relatively easy hike, but I'm getting to the point where I want the hiking to be over. The switchbacks that we started out with were tough, but aside from that, it's just been a lot of miles—11.8, to be precise. One of our longest days.

As always, it's a relief to be done with the day's hiking. We have arrived around 6:30. We do the usual. Tent goes up first thing. Sleeping pads and bags go in the tent. Then I boil the water and we enjoy our always-scrumptious hot dinner. Meeting Dave and Jeremy is a pleasant surprise. We had met them just after they began their hike several days earlier at Longmire.

Everyone around camp is now in bed. I've been wanting to try a long exposure at night with my film camera. Matt and I head up to the Patrol Cabin. It's only a few tenths of a mile from camp, but it's a challenge for my weary feet to get me there. Over the past 12 days, they've gotten tenderized in a big way. Matt and I chat for a couple hours while an image gets burned into the film. We talk about family and life, in the peace and quiet of the wilderness. We get back to camp and go to bed a little before midnight. Before too long, we're warm in our bags and sleeping after a long day. It's good to be here.

Photos of the Hike