Wonderland Trail – Day 2 « tonymccray.com

I slept pretty well my first night on the mountain. My REI Halo sleeping bag kept me very toasty. The only real problem was Daniel’s loud snoring. I resorted to putting tissue in my ears during the night. He had warned me ahead of time though, and very kindly gave me a new pair of ear plugs the following morning. When we woke up it was chilly – probably somewhere in the low 40s. As Daniel efficiently got his gear packed I struggled with exactly how to do things, often putting things in my pack that I actually needed. I guess that is what experiences like hiking the AT and half the PCT get you. I ate my breakfast of Pemmican and a Clif Nectar Bar, and hit the trail at 7:53, 40 minutes or so behind Daniel.

On paper, today looked to be our hardest day, covering 12.6 miles from Devil’s Dream camp to North Puyallup River camp. It started with a climb out of Devil’s Dream up to Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground. And the amazing views came early on the hike and never really stopped. Indian Henry’s Hunting Ground was a beautiful mix of forest, meadows, and small lakes, all dominated by Mt. Rainier. I stopped a lot to take pictures through here. Once past this area the trail descended towards the Tahoma Creek, and the suspension bridge over it. The canyon is deep, but the view from the north side is really impressive, as you can really see how it is carved out.

Daniel waited for me here, and filmed me crossing the bridge. After a break to peel of some layers and sunscreen up, we began our second climb of the day, headed towards the Tahoma Glacier. The ecosystems changed rapidly through here, starting in thick pine forest, heading into humid, overgrown sections, and finally up above tree level to great views of the glacier. Here I stopped again to eat a little, and to just stare at the scenery for a while. It does that to you.

From there we descended to South Puyallup River camp for lunch, before another long climb up to St. Andrews Park. Towards the top of this ascent there were views of mountains to the west, and of Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens to the south. Along this section of trail I found a frisbee that had been dropped by another hiker. While I didn’t really want to lug it around, I couldn’t just leave it there either, and since I expected the hikers who dropped it to be in the same camp as me that night, I picked it up. A few more turns brought me to St. Andrews Lake, where we filtered some water. We still had a long way to go on this day! With that done we descended a bit further to Klapatche Park and another camp. At this point both Daniel and I were wishing the day was done, but we still had a couple more miles to get to our camp for that night. I made good time on the descent to North Puyallup River, not really rushing, just in a bit of a groove and cruising along. I got to camp, set up my tent, and headed back up the trail to find Daniel. He was just outside of camp, carrying a 4-liter bag of water with him. Apparently he had been carrying it for quite a while, taking advantage of a good water source when he found it, not knowing what, if anything, would be closer to camp. I helped him carry the water the rest of the way and we got camp set up, and dinner cooked.

Including breaks, it took 10:55:54 from camp to camp – quite a long day! I’d guess I was actually hiking for around nine of those hours, but I wasn’t really keeping track of how long my breaks were. I had packed my bag differently today, putting more of the heavier gear towards the bottom. I thought I had read that putting light gear in the bottom, heavier gear towards the middle, and lighter gear towards the top, worked best for most people. But I also thought I read that when climbing a lot it might be better to put heavier gear at the bottom. Heavier gear towards the bottom seems to work for me! Yesterday’s 3.5 hours had my back hurting bad, but today’s 11 hours resulted in only a little discomfort, something I was very thankful for.

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