Wonderland Trail – Day 5 « tonymccray.com

As expected last night, we woke up to rain this morning. It was light when we got up, but became heavy by the time the bags were packed and breakfast was done. Waking up to rain, and having been in this area several times before, I was thankful for yesterday’s detour, as it allowed us to see a lot of the great views that were now obscured by clouds. As I prepared to leave camp I put my rain jacket on, but not my rain pants, and headed out. I figured with a long climb coming up, rain pants would make things a bit too warm.

Despite the rain and clouds the Carbon Glacier could still be seen, and was still amazing. The glacier is the lowest elevation glacier in the lower 48 states. While it isn’t the biggest glacier on Mt. Rainier, it is still massive, and it was interesting to see it in the rain, water flowing off it, and rocks tumbling down it.

Once above the Carbon Glacier the trail enters Moraine Park. This is one amazing area! One thing that I find really beautiful is a singletrack trail winding through a meadow that looks otherwise completely untouched. This area is a prime example of that. Some wildflowers were out, and the rain, clouds, and fog, made the area feel a lot different than I remember from my last visit. While we missed some great views of Mt. Rainier through here, the rain gave us a different experience that was still great.

Once at Mystic Lake I made my way to the patrol cabin, where Daniel and I agreed to meet up again. We figured we could hang out on the cabin’s dry porch while eating lunch. I wrote in my journal, ate lunch, and studied my map while waiting for Daniel, who arrived 40 minutes after me. When he got there, he announced that the rain hadn’t helped his injury at all, and that when we arrived at Sunrise the next day he would be heading home. I wasn’t too surprised, but was still very bummed that he would have to leave. I was a bit nervous continuing on my own, and I was also worried about how much more my being alone might make my wife worry about me. For the moment though, we still had about 5 miles to our next camp.

Leaving Mystic Lake I was cold, so I went ahead and added my rain pants to my kit. We would be descending through meadows for a while, so the pants would help me stay much drier and warmer. This descent was pretty nice. The rain finally let up, and once through the meadows the trail opened up again in the forest. As we approached the Winthrop Glacier we began to see more evidence of the November 2006 floods, as part of the trail followed what was obviously flowing with water in the past. The crossing of Winthrop Creek was interesting. The trail switchbacked into the canyon, where they usually have log bridges over the water. Here all there was was a small double limbed tree. Daniel and another hiker were ahead of me, but I wasn’t certain they had crossed on this. I looked up river for another bridge, or a cairn indicating another crossing, but didn’t see any. Then I noticed sand on the tree, so it was obvious that others had walked on it. I tested it, and it seemed sturdy, so I crossed there. Later I learned that Daniel found another crossing, although it didn’t matter much because we both made it across safely and dry.

From here the trail began to climb back into the forest along the Winthrop Glacier. We were only a few hundred feet from this massive glacier at some points. Like the Carbon Glacier, we heard and saw a lot of rock falling from the glacier. We never saw any big rocks, but later on in the day we heard a very loud crash, which had to have either been a large rock fall, or the glacier itself moving.

As the trail moved away from the glacier it climbed back into the forest. A group of three hikers we had seen near Mystic Lake caught back up to us here. They had hiked from Sunrise to (or beyond?) Mystic Lake and back – probably about a 20 mile day! I asked if they were training for something, and they told me they were heading to Tibet on a mission, and would be hiking from village to village there. Sounds like a pretty exciting thing to do. Camp came sooner than we expected for a change, and we were in Granite Creek Camp at 4 setting up tents and preparing dinner.

In total today it took 8:30 to go from camp to camp. It is really surprising how these long hiking days don’t really seem that long.

Some pictures from the day are below. More are at SmugMug.