Wonderland Trail – Day 8 « tonymccray.com

Given that yesterday was a hard hike, and I was waking up in an amazing place, I had planned to sleep in this morning, but I ended up out of the tent at 6:30. I had been hearing elk calls all night, and thought that if I was up early enough I might be able to watch them cross one of the meadows near camp. No such luck. Their calls seemed close, but as I looked around I never spotted them. It was still nice to be up early though. I caught the sunrise over the hills east of camp, and over Indian Bar, and it was beautiful.

I took my time getting ready this morning. Why would anyone be in a hurry to leave this place? I finally hit the trail at 8:42, my latest departure of the trip by about an hour. The trail climbed steeply, up steps, immediately upon leaving camp. No chance for a warmup today! With a couple of short downhills thrown in, the trail climbed from 5100′ to almost 6000′ in just a couple of miles. Views back towards Indian Bar, with a slightly cloud obscured Mt. Rainier becoming more and more visible, made rest breaks frequent and enjoyable.

Despite my late departure, I was pretty sure I was the first hiker on the trail. There were elk tracks everywhere, and occasionally I still heard calls, so I stopped frequently to check out the surrounding meadows and valleys for wildlife. Besides the elk that were obviously nearby, this area is well known for offering up mountain goat and bear sightings. Despite many patient stops and lots of ’signs’ of nearby wildlife, and I wasn’t seeing anything.

After the early steady climb the trail follows along a ridge for a while with lots of ups and downs. As I continued around the mountain I reached one overlook with a really great view. I could see Little Tahoma Peak, Cathedral Rocks, Disappointment Cleaver, Muir Snowfield, and Whitmen, Ingraham, Cowlitz, Paradise, and Nisqually Glaciers. Quite the view! Continuing along the ridge, I continued stopping periodically. I was still hearing elk. Finally I spotted something – bear! Down off the trail a ways a light brown momma bear and her darker cub were eating berries. I could hardly believe my luck! I stopped and grabbed my camera. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) the bear were so far away even zoomed in all the way, the pictures are out of focus. I took a couple of videos too, but they are even worse. Oh well – I still got to see them, which was a somewhat rare treat.

After this the trail finally started the long descent towards camp, moving back into the forest, with mostly uninteresting scenery. I plugged along, stopping to chat with a few other backpackers along the way. One group, traveling counterclockwise, I had also run into on day 3 near Golden Lakes. I stopped at Nickle Creek Camp – my habit at this point was the stop at a camp for lunch. I was close to Box Canyon though, and had visions of picnic tables in my head. Nickle Creek Camp, at least the group site, was uninteresting, so I moved on to Box Canyon. Once I arrived there though – no picnic tables! I sat on a stone retaining wall to try and eat my lunch, but the thing was covered with ants, so I ended up standing around while I ate. I took in the tourist sites, and some potable water, and headed on – only 2.5 more miles to camp!

I ended up arriving in camp just after 3:00. Yesterday I had had serious thoughts of changing my itinerary if I ran into a ranger, and pushing on to Paradise Camp today so that hiking out on day 9 would be faster – I was anxious to get home to Joanne. However I was much less energetic today than I expected, and putting in another 7 or so miles today would have been pretty insane. Yesterday took quite a bit from me, and today was a much tougher day than I had expected. In total today in took me 6:10 to get from camp to camp, covering 10 miles.

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