Wonderland Trail – Day 4 « tonymccray.com

Up this morning at 6 after a great nights sleep. Interesting how quickly I adjusted to a going to sleep at night fall getting up at first light pattern out here. Before leaving camp this morning I walked back up to South Mowich River to check out the river crossing that was almost being overtopped yesterday, thinking it would be interesting to see it during a period of lower water flow early in the morning. It actually looked no different from the night before – maybe just a little lower. Oh well! I packed up my gear, and was lifting my pack onto my back when I noticed the frisbee still laying on a log. The thing was starting to frustrate me! Almost every time I packed up since picking it up I’ve forgotten it, and had to set my pack back down, and open it up, and get the frisbee stashed away. I never did run into whoever dropped it.

After breakfast I hit the trail for the 4-mile climb up to Mowich Lake. There were a few views along the way, but the trail mostly switchbacked up through the forest. It was a pretty warm morning as well. It took me 2 hours 15 minutes to get up to Mowich Lake. Once there I found Daniel. He developed an injury the prior two days, and wasn’t sure if he could continue beyond Mowich Lake. He said he “felt great” though, and planned to continue, which I was thankful for.

My first food cache had been mailed to Mowich Lake, so I went searching for that. The day before I realized I had put the wrong pickup date on it, so I was concerned that it was locked away somewhere. I found a ranger, and he directed me to the Patrol Cabin on the edge of the lake. Turned out it was just in a big lockbox on the cabin’s porch, so they are accessible any time hikers come by. I loaded the food into my pack. Between the food and the three liters of water a kind camper gave me, my pack was suddenly pretty heavy again!

Another great thing happened at Mowich Lake – I got rid of the frisbee! I had planned to throw it out here no matter what, but asked a group camping there if they wanted it. They seemed very excited to have it – almost like they needed it. Maybe a frisbee was the one thing they forgot to pack?

After a break of probably around an hour, we were back on the trail. I hadn’t eaten at the lake though, and soon realized that I was hungry, so I stopped about a mile after resuming for a snack. 1.5 miles past Mowich Lake we made it to Ipsut Pass. The view from here was amazing! We found ourselves basically standing on the edge of a cliff with clear views of surrounding hills, the valley we were hiking into, and what we thought was the Carbon River Valley were our camp was. The trail down Ipsut Pass was steep! Switchbacks for a long ways, very rocky, and somewhat overgrown for much of the way. The views were spectacular though, and helped to ease the pain of the descent a bit. It took quite a while to descend off the pass and into the valley, although once there the descent continued. It just kept on giving! After leveling out for a while it became steeper again as it approached the Carbon River. Between the initial climb to Mowich and 5 miles of sometimes tough descending, I was getting worn out!

When we finally made the junction that would take us to our camp for the night we ran into a few other hikers that suggested we visit Ipsut Falls, just five minutes down the trail, before heading up, so we did. Daniel took the opportunity to get some water, and we both ate a little. I was still loaded up on water from Mowich Lake to take on more, especially since we were about to resume climbing. After a nice break we were back on the trail, with only 2.5 miles more to get to camp.

The trail through here wasn’t too bad. We were climbing, but usually at a reasonable rate. There was lots to stop and take pictures of. Trees were down everywhere. Some were obviously very old, since they were around six feet in diameter. In other areas there were trees in the middle of the river that had survived the flood, and were now literally growing in the middle of the river! As we approached a lower crossing of the Carbon River, where there is a junction with the Northern Loop trail, we found that the Wonderland Trail was still washed out, and we had to detour via that crossing to get to camp. So we crossed the huge Carbon River. The valley here is incredible. It is around a quarter-mile wide, perhaps wider in some places. It took several bridges to get across, and we got awesome views up the valley and to Mt. Rainier. Once across a right hand turn on the Northern Loop Trail had us heading to the suspension bridge across the Carbon River. Crossing the suspension bridge we got out first views of the Carbon Glacier. After crossing the bridge we had to hike back down the Wonderland Trail to get to camp. Overall we felt like it was probably a mile long detour.

I think today was the most difficult day of the entire trip. It was supposed to be 11.9 miles from South Mowich River Camp to Carbon River Camp, though with the detour we probably hiked closer to 13. It took me 9:54 from camp to camp, including the 20-minute excursion to the South Mowich River before leaving camp, and about 90 minutes worth of breaks.

Here are some pictures from the day. More are at SmugMug.

The frisbee that I carried around for two days. Almost every time I loaded my pack I forgot about it! Fortunatley I was able to get rid of it at Mowich Lake.