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August 25th was the first of nine days/eight nights I planned to spend hiking the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier. My friend Daniel and I started our hike at Longmire, headed 5.7 miles in to Devil’s Dream camp, our first overnight stop on our clockwise circuit of The Mountain.

We got a somewhat late start, at 2:00, which was the plan. I had breakfast with Joanne before picking up Daniel and leaving town so I could spend as much time with her as possible before leaving – this would be our longest period apart, and the longest we’ve ever gone without talking, since we met over seven years ago. During the drive up it rained lightly almost the entire time, but by the time we started our hike it was just cloudy. We got a small glimpse of Rainier from the Longmire parking lot before heading out, but it was mostly socked in. During the hike up we crossed Kautz Creek, and saw some of the damage caused by a severe storm in November 2006. The edge of a cliff was washed away 30-40′ above the level of the river! I wonder what it would have been like to witness that.

Including a short break at Hornpipe Creek we arrived at camp in 3 hours 36 minutes. My upper back was killing me! I had had the same problem when I took my loaded pack out on a test hike, but thought I had figured it out. Apparently not. I was concerned about what this would mean for the rest of the hike, because we had some long days ahead. After a dehydrated Mountain House bacon and egg meal (with my additions of dehydrated veggies and beef tallow) I was in the tent at 8:06.

A few pictures from the day are below. More are at SmugMug.