Then, I read about the Fiskars Momentum Reel Mower in a magazine. It is promoted to be “30% Easier to Push”. I read the reviews from actual use posted on Lowes website and they were mostly good. Lowes is selling it for $199.00, probably similar to what we paid for the Scotts. I thought we should give a go. I first went to Lowes by myself to get it. The mowers were stocked on a shelf above the floor level. I pushed one box a little bit and it barely moved. I figured it’s too heavy for me so I waited until Tony was home in another weekend to buy it.

We assembled and adjusted the blades one evening. Everything seemed to be okay at that point. It was getting too dark to mow the lawn so we put it away for the night. A few days later, I was walking home from the bus stop after work and saw Tony adjusting the mower in the driveway. He finished mowing the back yard at that point. He said he pushed the mower across the lawn over to the concrete driveway and he heard a loud bang. When he checked the mower, he found a straight dent on one of the cutting reel blades. It looked like the stationery blade on the mower housing bumped into the reel blade.

The owner’s manual said repair any dings as quickly as possible with a file. Tony did that but the big problem was that the positions of the stationary and the reel blades got out of whack. He followed the instructions to adjust things. This mower is designed to have those blades to be slightly apart from each other. They are not supposed to touch. When they are adjusted close enough, the mower would cut perfectly. Our mower can no longer get to that perfect position. Tony tried to bring the blades close together. They came into contact in the middle area and they were too far apart for cutting at one end. The other end remains to cut fine. He adjusted the blades so no parts of them touched and finished the front yard as is.

Straight dent in the middle of the reel blade

Tony called the Fiskars help line and they told him to send in a photo through their warranty request page. He submitted the request online late May and we heard nothing since. He also called and left a message in late June. Still nothing. He just tried replying to the warranty request received email last night. I doubt we will hear anything. This is such a bummer. I used it twice since then. It is definitely easier to push (but it is still a work out).

The Scotts is like a fixed gear bike. You have to keep pushing to move the blades. The Fiskars is a single speed. When I push it real fast and then stop, the cutting reel spins for a while. I think that’s pretty cool. It’s a great idea to add a chain to the reel mower. The next step is adding some suspension to the front wheels. The little plastic front wheels on the Fiskars can’t handle any bumps. I pretty much lifted up the front wheels when I was about to reach the concrete edge of the lawn (and we have quite a bit of those edges). Aside from that, only 2/3 of the 18″ blades cut the grass. The Scotts is a 20″. The Fiskars is smaller as it is so the partial cutting forces us to do more passes to mow the whole lawn.

All in all, if your lawn is surrounded by hard scape like concrete, this is NOT the mower for you. I really want to avoid going with gas or electric. But do we have a choice?

The Saturday call out was to meet at 6:30am at the Sheriff’s office. I woke up around 6am and Tony had already finished eating breakfast, almost ready to go. It’s going to be a nice day, sunny and high around the low 80′s. He has only one pair of pants suitable for the whole weekend. We need to get him more. His text message after 4pm was that the team was getting ready for a second mission. He got home after 10pm. He was again congested but not sneezing as much as he used to. The allergy medicine helps but it is not enough for how much stuff he was walking through. He told me a few times before, “Search and Rescue doesn’t walk around stuff, they walk through stuff.”

The food that was served to the searchers had improved a lot. During the first week before the statewide call to SAR, Tony had cold pizza and cookies one night. They were lucky last weekend when one of the Multnomah County SAR volunteer cooks showed up with a BBQ and made hamburgers and sausages. Yesterday, he had cold fried chicken for lunch (a late one since the second mission didn’t start until after 4pm) and steak and baked potato for dinner. A butcher shop in Gresham donated the steak. That’s really cool. Tony’s diet in the past year has been meat, fish, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, eggs, bacon, and a variety of fat. He is allergic to most vegetables, fruit, nuts and wheat. By avoiding these foods and dairy, his seasonal allergy had become almost non-existent until he went on this massive search. It’s important that he could eat about the same kind of foods during the search but it would be almost impossible. An enthusiastic volunteer handed him a baked potato last night and he couldn’t refuse. Luckily, they were serving it with bacon and butter and he loaded that potato right up.

Sunday call out is once again a meet up at 6:30am. I was so tired from my cousin’s graduation party the night before (I was playing ping pong and pool) that I was sound asleep until he came into the bedroom to say goodbye. He assured me he took allergy medicine and had put on sunscreen. He will use the eye drop a little later. When I got out of bed to see him off, I saw that his small pack was out of his big backpack and attached to a helmet. His team was allowed to carry the small pack yesterday and he hopes they will do the same again today. That would be nice because his big backpack has enough gears to stay the night out in the woods. They were carrying the big packs as shown in the Oregonian photos last weekend. It doesn’t make sense to keep doing the same as they get to go home every night. The big packs are still taken to base just in case. Well, let’s keep good thoughts on all the SAR folks.

Update (6/15/2010): Sunday was another long day even though the Sheriff’s Office called off the massive search at noon and Tony’s team was back at base finishing lunch around 3pm. The entire command center needed to be packed up so it’s again up to the SAR volunteers to do the work. A bright side was that the huge amount of donated food and water was distributed among all the SAR’s that came here from all over Oregon. When the SAR goes out on a search, they have to bring all of their own supplies including food and water. Tony said his SAR got all of the water supply replenished from the donation. That’s a really good thing because it’s not yet summer and plenty more people will go missing in the warmer months. Several hours after packing up and figuring out who should transport what back to the Sheriff’s Office, a new search came in just when the Multnomah County SAR was about to leave the Skyline area. A child went missing on Larch Mountain. One of the SAR leaders started pointing at Tony and a few other volunteers and directing them to leave for the new search. Tony was exhausted at that point but luckily, minutes after the call came in, the missing child was found. “Save by the bell!” for sure. He got home around 9:30pm.

Earlier that evening, I dragged my sore self out to buy a gift card for his cousin, a little cup of chocolate peanut butter ice cream (for him), and pizza (dinner for me) after working a long day in the yard. Tony almost stopped by the store on the way home to buy beer and ice cream but decided against it because it was too late to drink a beer. So, I totally read his mind except for the beer. Besides, he didn’t eat dinner after the late lunch of hot dogs and fruit because there were a lot of snacks laying around and it didn’t make sense to cook a full meal again after the search was called off. Tony was congested all weekend and also on Monday morning. He was finally able to breathe again by late Monday afternoon. There is still a scratch on his arm from the blackberry bushes and the itching is slowly going away.

Reposting from Education Northwest intranet, originally published on June 8, 2010

My husband Tony joined the Multnomah County Search and Rescue (SAR) last fall. He came up with the idea when he decided to do something similar to me volunteering for Amnesty International USA (I’ve been an active member since 1999) – a cause I am deeply passionate about.

The Multnomah County SAR trainings are held from mid-September to early June every year. There is an indoor classroom training every Wednesday 7-9pm and an overnight weekend outing once a month. When he began the training last fall, we were two months into our kitchen remodel. The remodel was a total gut job. We demoed all the way to the studs and sub-floor. And we are still working on it at the moment. The SAR trainings had probably caused a good amount of delays but I didn’t mind it at all. (Big thanks to Nancy Henry for loaning us her hot plate. We are still using it everyday!!!)

Last Wednesday was graduation day. I got to go to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office to attend the ceremony. The newly elected Sheriff was there and he gave a good speech. Good man, I think. Less than a week after Tony was officially certified for SAR, he got called out on a search. This is the big one – the student that went missing at Skyline Elementary School.

The first call came in last Friday. He couldn’t go at that time. He checked back with his team Saturday night after finding out the news online. Another call went out to all volunteers to gather at the Sheriff’s Office on Sunday at 7am.

He woke up early last Sunday to eat a big breakfast. I couldn’t get back to sleep after he got out of bed. I got up, watched him get dressed and off the way he went with his huge backpack and another duffel bag of stuff in case he had to stay overnight. I called his friend later that morning to let him know we wouldn’t be able to make it to his place for the barbecue he was hosting that evening. I also talked to my brother-in-law by phone to make sure his mom know Tony went on the search (his mom requires him to call her every time he goes on a search). Then, my duty was done for the day. I wasn’t in the mood for the kitchen remodel so I did chores around the house instead (neglecting two bathrooms during a remodel is not a good idea).

Sometime after 5:30pm, he called to let me know his team was back to base (the “command center” of the search) and he was waiting for further instructions. An hour later, he sent me a text that said he was going out again with his team and he would be coming home later in the evening. Sometime after 9pm, he got home. I don’t worry about him but the not-knowing what he is doing out there is kind of bugging me. The news reports weren’t super helpful. But at least the Oregonian snapped a good photo of him.

Last night, we were out having dinner in the Pearl District. His cellphone was buzzing the entire time. There was another call for the search. He had a major report due later this week so he took all of his gear to work this morning. A moment ago, I got a text from him. He is going out to the search again. I hope he won’t stay overnight. A few of his teammates were sleeping in the school gym over the weekend. With school back in session, I don’t know where the volunteers would sleep if they stay there. It could be the A-frame made of tree branches and a tarp as he had been trained to do all along.

Update (6/9/2010): Tony called me shortly after 9:30pm last night to let me know his team was back at base. They had to debrief before they could go home for the night. He got home around 11pm with all signs of allergies. His arms got red marks and his eyes and nose were watery. Lots of sneezing and itchy eyes, too. A teammate told him to pour rubbing alcohol over his arms and it took the itchiness away. He took an allergy pill before heading to bed. We looked everywhere for the special eye drop prescribed by his doctor but it’s nowhere to be found (nothing is easy to locate during a remodel). I asked him if he should stay out for a day and he said he might just take his gear to work with him. Do I need to wave the “Listen to your wife, please” card? Well, he is still quite congested this morning and agrees that he won’t go out on the search today (he had already gotten calls from several people last night for today’s search). 200+ hours of training are no match to the thick vegetation (as tall as him I heard) that kicks off his allergies.

Update (6/10/2010): There was a call out to Multnomah County SAR to meet at the Sheriff’s Office at 4pm yesterday. Tony didn’t bring his gear to work and he wouldn’t be able to arrive on time anyway. He offered to drive the shuttle and that was his job for the night. He transported search teams between their assigned areas and base. He also added up volunteer hours at the command center. Even for such simple tasks, he was there past 9pm and got home after 10:30pm. As for me, I went to the store to get him allergy medicine (and a chocolate bar for me). In terms of tonight, he plans to go straight home after work to clean up his gear to get ready for the weekend. But what about all the festivities (2 graduation parties and a baby shower) we got invited to this weekend? “We will see,” he said. What did I let him get into? A new obsession?!

“Stay tuned for the continuing coverage …”

Since I can hardly take the time to write a blog post, my wife has asked to be a contributor on my blog. So of course, since I am a good husband and always listen to my wife I did just that. So, hopefully something interesting will start popping up here from time to time. Like her experiences with me being out on searches, such as the one going on now for Kyron Horman.

My gear all packed the night before leaving

• Backpack: Gregory Z.65 – I easily packed all my other gear into this. During a shakedown trip, and day 1 of this hike, my shoulders hurt like hell after carrying this for just a few hours. During days 2 and 3 I found that for me what seems to work best is packing the heaviest gear on the bottom and working up to the lightest gear. One day I was on the move for 11 hours, with no significant back pain.
• Tent: REI Quarterdome T1 – Plenty of length for my 5’7″ish body. Plenty of width for me to switch from laying on my left side to my right during the night. Plenty of headroom for me to sit up when I wanted to. Vestibule was ample for stashing my backpack, trekking poles, and boots under during the night, leaving more than enough room for me to get in and out. Not a lot of space to lay gear out inside, but if that is a concern you shouldn’t buy this tent. A few more pockets would be nice. On my next trip I’m bring dental floss to tie to several points inside the tent to hang things on.
• Sleeping bag: REI Halo +25 – It was a little on the narrow side, but I guess that is a trade off for light weight. This bag kept me warm with no issues. The first night was probably close to if not below freezing. I could feel the cold air outside the bag through the small opening left after cinching the hood down, but I was completely toasty. No complaints about this bag.
• Sleeping pad: Old Thermarest – I have an old full length self-inflating Thermarest pad that still works great.
• Clothing that I wore every day:
  • Shoes: Keen Voyageur – No complaints about these. They may have been a bit light at times for some of the trail, but overall were a great choice given the varying terrain and my relatively light pack.
  • Socks: I used some REI wool socks. I took two pairs, alternately wearing one while the other hung outside my pack soaking in the sun.
  • Pants/Shorts: REI Sahara Convertible – I like these pants – the first “real” hiking pants I’ve owned. They are easy to convert from pants to shorts, have plenty of pockets, fit well, and are light weight.
  • Underwear: REI polyester – One pair for the whole trip, which seemed gross at first but turned out fine. I would carry a third pair of socks before adding a second pair of these.
  • Shirt: I took two shirts: a short sleeve REI synthetic, and a long sleeve mid-weight synthetic, changing them as conditions demanded.
  • Hat: Tilley Airflo – Apparently I joined some sort of exclusive club by buying a Tilley hat. These things are legendary, and with good reason. It is comfortable, can’t get blown off when worn right, keeps the sun off when needed, and keeps the rain off when needed, and keeps its shape well despite rough treatment.
• Clothing that I packed/wore occasionally:
  • Outlast Beanie – I wear this running in the winter. During this trip I mostly used it in camp at night and in the morning, and some days early in the morning while hiking. It kept me warm when I needed it, and is light weight.
  • mont-bell Extremely Light Down Jacket – I quickly fell in love with this jacket. It weighs under one-third of a pound, but with 900-fill down is very warm. I was always comfortable when wearing it around camp. In fact, I want to put it on right now!
  • mont-bell Torrent Flier Pants – Light weight, packable rain pants. I wore them once, on day 5, to keep myself warm and dry during a rainy descent through meadows. They were easy to put on and take off with my hiking boot on, did their job well, and packed down small when they weren’t needed.
  • Novara Rainy Pass Bike Gloves – These have worked great for cycling, and I figured they’d work well on the hike and at a pretty light weight. This is the only piece of clothing I brought that I never used. On the few nights that it started to feel cold enough to put them on, it was time to crawl into the sleeping bag anyway. That said, I don’t think this is something I’d leave behind.
• Other gear:
  • REI Peak UL Shocklight Trekking Poles – I like that these are lightweight, and they did their job well. The shock is designed to lock out, but mine never stayed locked out. Definitely something I wouldn’t want to be without – they helped so much during all the steep up and down hills.
  • Ursack – bear/critter proof bag for food storage. At Mt. Rainier you are required to hang your food, but any bag will do. I chose to use this, and it worked well. I don’t think it was completely necessary, and there is a definite weight penalty to this versus just using my sleeping bag’s stuff sack. On the bright side, I could be confident that if any critters did manage to get to the hanging food bags, they’d probably dig into other camper’s supplies before mine, since they would be easier to get to.
  • 3 liter water bladder, in my backpack.
  • 1 liter collapsible Platypus bottle – for gathering/treating water
  • Platypus drinking tube adapter/Camelbak filter adapter – I used this combo to fill my water bladder with the collapsible Platypus bottle without having to remove the bladder from the backpack.
  • Steripen – for treating water – This worked well for me. However, I’m not sure it is the right long-term solution for water treatment. If the batteries die you are hosed if you don’t have extras. Seems like Aquamira is probably lighter weight, and more reliable. Ultimately it would probably be best to carry both for redundancy. During the first portion of the trip I also used water that Daniel filtered.
  • Headlamp – Used in camp, mainly for reading or journaling in the tent.
  • Extra batteries for headlamp – I didn’t end up needing them, but not something I’d likely leave behind.
  • Map – used multiple times each day to figure out what points of interest were, where water was, how much further to camp, and what the next day would be like.
  • Compass/waterproof matches/mirror/whistle/knife/etc. – emergency gear. Never needed, but not something to be without.
  • Pentax Optio WP Camera – Waterproof point and shoot. I didn’t have anything but the usual issues. My only gripe about this camera is it doesn’t do well in low light, even when it seems light enough.
  • 1GB memory card – 1GB turned out not to be enough. I spent time during my last three nights erasing photos that were near duplicates or didn’t look good. Next time, I’ll take the biggest memory card the camera can handle.
  • Three charged camera batteries – I used all three.
  • Thermarest patch kit – not needed. Not sure whether I’d take this next time or not. Maybe just one patch.
  • Antigravity Gear stove set – this was Daniel’s stove, which he let me use nightly to boil a cup of water for dinner.
  • iPod Shuffle – Before this trip I had never listed to music while hiking, but ended up really enjoying this on long climbs and descents. Having it at camp at night was also really nice.
  • Journal/pen – for writing about the day’s hike
  • Book – Jack London’s Call of the Wild/White Fang – I had never read either book, and figured it was appropriate for a backpacking trip. I thought both were great!

• Personal/Hygiene:
  • Roll of toilet paper – I took a whole (double!) roll, not knowing how much I need. Seems like this is too important to risk running out of!
  • Baby wipes – for ‘bathing’ after reaching camp each night.
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Sunscreen – I chose one from Jason’s Cosmetics, and never got burned.
  • Insect repellent – I brought a lemon-eucalyptus variety, but never used it. There was only one occasion where the insect were bad enough that I might have wanted to, and that lasted only an hour while in a camp eating lunch.

There are two things I wish I had brought: earplugs, and my trail running gaiters. Daniel hooked me up with earplugs after the first night, which I was greatful for. The gaiters would have helped my feet stay a bit drier during the rainy day hiking through the meadows.

I think that is all! Overall I think I did a pretty good job packing. When I left the house with three liters of water and three days worth of food my pack weighed 32 lbs. I could definitely get lighter with a few different gear choices, but that will come with more experience.

HDTV Antenna

HDTV Signal Strength

Here are the YouTube instructions I followed:

On the way out of camp I grabbed my food bag off the bear pole, waiting to get my food out and put the bag in my pack until I was away from camp so I didn’t wake the other campers. Breakfast this morning was on the go. The trail started out gently enough that I was able to stash my trekking poles on my pack so I had both hands free to eat my Pemmican. With breakfast out of the way I began to hustle a bit. I still had 11 miles to cover today. As the trail began to turn uphill, climbing through Steven’s Canyon, it also became incredibly overgrown. If I hadn’t actually been on the trail, I wouldn’t have been able to see it. There was even a moment when I did question if I was really still on the trail! My pants were soaked from all the dew on the brush, and my pace slowed down considerably. There were plenty of trip hazards hidden in the brush, so it was important to pay attention to where my feet were going down.

This overgrown section lasted for quite a while – a lot longer than I expected. There were occasional great views of Mt. Rainier through here, crystal clear in the early morning sun. It was beautiful! After about two hours I reached Louise Lake, one of the main attractions on today’s hike. There was a side trail (overgrown of course) down to the lake, and I took it. The view and the feel of the area, this early in the morning, were amazing. It helped that I had the place all to myself. The water was calm, reflecting the surrounding hills (Rainier wasn’t visible from here), and there was a light fog hovering just above the water over much of the lake. There were deer tracks all over. If they were there when I showed up, I definitely scared them off. I was there long enough to recognize how luck I was to be there before moving on.

Back on the Wonderland Trail I quickly arrived at Reflection Lakes. These lakes give an amazing view of Mt. Rainier, with the mountain reflecting off the lake in the right conditions. Well, early morning is usually the right conditions! The reflection off the lake was pretty amazing. Interestingly the summit of Rainier was now covered with a thick lenticular cloud. That wasn’t there an hour ago! I took some photos and then sat on the retaining wall to have a snack, and take it all in. Sure I was in a hurry, but I also wasn’t going to pass anything by without fully enjoying it. I spent a little over 20 minutes here, striking up a conversation with someone who wanted to know about my trip, and the highlights.

From here I anticipated the rest of the 5.8 miles to be rather boring. I read in a guidebook that this section of trail, back to Longmire, is often hot, muggy, and boring. Fortunately it really wasn’t any of those things for me.

First, there were the incredibly delicious huckleberries near the lakes. I couldn’t believe that there were so many of them so close to areas that almost everyone who visits Mt. Rainier drives to. I took my fair share of handfulls. When the trail turned downhill, as I began the 2000+ foot descent back to Longmire, reentering thick forest, and a deer jumped out on the trail right in front of me. She looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I tried to get my camera out, but she was off the trail too fast. If I had been paying attention I could have gotten a picture of her baby when it came out onto the trail next! Oh well.

Continuing on I took another short side trail up to Narada Falls, which the Paradise River flows over. I’d been there before, but had never ventured below the falls, and there wasn’t any reason to skip it now. There were several more waterfalls in this area. One, Madcap Falls, was really cool. The other was Carter Falls. There are actually signs at trailheads directing people up the Wonderland Trail to Carter Falls. I feel sorry for anyone who hikes up there just for these falls – you can barely even see them through the trees!

Eventually I got to where the Paradise River flows into the Nisqually River. I crossed the Nisqually over a couple of log bridges, admiring the amazing view up to Rainier, still covered with the lenticular cloud. I only had about a mile to go here. I cruised the rest of the way down, stopping for a victory photo at the Longmire trailhead, having covered today’s 10.9 miles in 5:12.

I feel really lucky that yesterday I wasn’t up to cruising all the way to Paradise Camp so I had a shorter hike out today. The things I saw today, particularly the lakes, were spectacular. Had I rushed it yesterday, I would have arrived at the lakes late in the day, when conditions aren’t normally good for the kind of views I experienced.

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

Overgrown section of the trail

Mt. Rainier from Stevens Canyon - two miles from Reflection Lakes and the summit is visible

Me, very happy to be enjoying the view at Louise Lake, and the solitude

Mt. Rainier from Reflection Lakes. Notice the lenticular cloud covering the summit - that wasn't there 40 minutes ago!

Huckleberries and blueberries were available by the handful around Reflection Lakes

Mt. Rainier - even more obscured by clouds - at the Nisqually River crossing, about 4 miles past Reflection Lakes

The best things in life come full circle. Here I am back where I started nine days ago.

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.

Sunrise over Indian Bar

The Wonderland Trail and wildflower meadows on the way out of Indian Bar

Me and a view back to Indian Bar

The best picture I got of the bear I saw. Can't really see the cub.

Camp for my 8th and final night

When it looked like the trail was staring to turn back uphill I stopped for a few minutes to put some moleskin on a few hotspots on my feet. A few tender spots had developed since day 5′s rain. That taken care of, I started the climb. As I climbed higher, following Frying Pan Creek much of the way, the views also improved, getting better and better as I climbed up towards Summerland. The trail began climbing more steeply here, but there seemed to be so many great photo ops that I ended up taking frequent breaks. After 2:47 I arrived at Summerland Camp, having covered 6.7 miles. Those may have been the fastest miles I covered during the entire trip!

Summerland was amazing. I can see why this is one of the more popular areas of the park. The meadows were beautiful, and the views of Rainier behind them awesome. Add to that view across Frying Pan Creek to Goat Island Mountain, down another valley to the east, and up towards Panhandle Gap, where the Wonderland Trial goes next, and there is almost too much here to even take it all in. I located the group campsite, set some gear and my feet out in the sun, and ate lunch while just enjoying the view. After 40 minutes, after considering the idea that I was probably the only person around for miles (after all, I had gotten a pretty early start) I packed up to continue on, only to discover a family of four and another party also leaving camp. So much for my perceived solitude!

From Summerland Camp the trail descended briefly to a stream where I took on some water. Looking ahead, it is hard to tell where the trail actually goes. The terrain looks steep, and it is hard to believe that the Wonderland Trail, or any trail, actually goes through there. After climbing a stair-stepped hill the trail enters a high alpine area where not much grows other than rocks and a few sparse plants. On nearby cliffs there were still many snowfields melting out, providing water for many waterfalls, high alpine lakes, and the streams flowing from them. I feel like I must have stopped every five steps up here as the perspective on the scenery changed. I felt incredibly lucky to be in that place.

Continuing to climb I eventually got to Panhandle Gap at about 6700′ – the highest point on the Wonderland Trail, and stopped there for a while to take in the view. I could still see down into Summerland, but now I could also see to the southeast and into Ohanapecosh Park and a distant Mt. Adams. From here the trail went on a series of ups and downs of a few hundred feet, sometimes steeply, crossing several streams flowing from snowmelt. I even had to cross a very small snowfield. After many more stops I made it to a ridge from which you can see the Frying Pan and Ohanapecosh Glaciers perched at the tops of cliffs with water flowing down from there. From here the trail descended steeply 1600′ down what must have been 1000 steps to Indian Bar. The scenery throughout was amazing, and the ripe blueberries made frequent rest stops more or less mandatory.

The Indian Bar area is just as amazing as the rest of what I saw today. Views into Ohanapecosh and Cowlitz Parks, separated by the Ohanapecosh River (or at least its headwaters), with views clear up to the Ohanapecosh and Frying Pan Glaciers, were mezmerizing. I set up in site 2, as recomended by some other hikers I saw earlier on the trail. It was incredible, by far the best camp I had during the trip, and it would make a great place to spend the afternoon.

All together it took me 6:53 to get from White River to Indian Bar Camp, and while it was a difficult day it wasn’t as hard as I had expected. By far, it was the highlight of the trip.

Here are some pictures from today. More are at SmugMug.

Early morning sun on Mt. Rainier over the White River

Frying Pan Creek, and an early glimpse of Mt. Rainier

Mt. Rainier and Summerland

Wonderland Trail, in foreground and background, heading away from Summerland

The view from Panhandle Gap

A view of Ohanapecosh Park and distant mountains

The only snowfield I had to cross. This picture makes it look more dangerous than it really was.

Wonderland Trail at the beginning of the descent to Indian Bar, with Frying Pan and Ohanapecosh Glaciers.

River flowing from Ohanapecosh Glacier through Indian Bar

The view from night 7 camp. Can you imagine waking up to this view? I was lucky enough to on one morning.

Continuing on the trail descended a bit into Berkeley Park. This was another spectacular area – one of the highlights of the trip. Some great views of Mt. Rainier, now to our south, views north to Grand Park, and a few small streams running through the expansive meadows of Berkeley Park itself. I could have sat here all day taking it all in! We saw another marmot here and got a few picutres, and finally saw a few pika as well after listening to their calls throughout the trip. They were too small and quick to get pictures of though!

At a trail junction at Frozen Lake Daniel took the shortest route into Sunrise to organize a ride home. This was the end of the trip for him, unfortunately. I continued on the Wonderland Trail, taking a slightly longer route to get to Sunrise, but avoiding the need to retrace my steps. The trail descended steeply for a bit before arriving at Sunrise Camp and Shadow Lake. At this point the trail mostly leveled out as it rounded a ridge, presenting amazing views of Emmons Glacier, the largest glacier in the lower 48 states, and of course Mt. Rainier towering over it all. Soon I reached a half-mile trail leading up to Sunrise.

Once at Sunrise I found Daniel, who was busy getting his cell phone charged up so he could call and arrange a ride home. After he made his call, I called Joanne to let her know what was going on. If she was really concerned about me going on alone, I couldn’t tell. We had to get off the phone more abruptly than I would have liked, as I thought Daniel’s phone was going to die. Talking to her was hard, as it made me realize how much I really missed her. I had serious thoughts of bailing along with Daniel to get home to her, but ultimately knew that finishing my hike was the right thing to do. The park rangers were unable to get Daniel a ride back to Longmire since they were short handed, but eventually someone named Liberty offered him a ride to Olympia. Daniel has family there, and happily accepted the ride, and I continued on my hike.

The hike to White River was downhill through thick forest. There weren’t a lot of views, so I just hiked along, making pretty good time. Once in White River camp I considered renting a drive in site so I could have a fire. When I found a couple of drive in sites located next to the walk-in sites I decided against it, figuring that if I really wanted a fire I could just buy some firewood and squat in one. I set up camp and laid out a bunch of my gear in the sun to dry – many things were still damp from the rain on day 4. I then ate an early dinner, hoping that I’d be hungry again later so I could eat some of my extra food and lighten my pack a bit. I picked up a second food cache at White River, and knowing day 7 would likely be my hardest day, I wanted to get my pack as light as I could! Turned out, I wasn’t hungry later.

I had arrived at camp at 2:19, so had plenty of time to kill before bed time. I talked with Steve for a while, the only other hiker staying in camp tonight. He is an ultralight guy, so naturally we talked gear for a while. His base pack weight is down to 11 lbs – I’ve definitely got some work to do, and some gear to invest in! Around 7:00 I headed down to the river to watch the sunset for a while. It was a bit hazy, but the view of Rainier was great, and the time I spent here was very relaxing. Next I went to the pay phone to call Joanne again. We talked for a while, mostly about how my trip had gone so far, and how my gear was working out. I felt a lot better after talking to her again, and was glad that I called again.

I was in my tent at 8:00, after what was more or less a rest day. This was the shortest day of the trip at 8.2 miles, including the one mile out and back to Sunrise. The terrain wasn’t difficult either. The day started with a climb, but ended with a descent of over 2000′ from Sunrise to White River. I was in camp very early as well, with many hours to set around and rest.

It took 6:23 to get from Granite Creek camp to White River, including 1:46 spent at Sunrise. It took over 3 hours to get from Granite Creek camp to Sunrise, but just over an hour to get from Sunrise to White River.

Here are some pictures. More are on SmugMug.

Me and Mt. Rainier from ridge near Berkeley Park

View from ridge above Berkely Park - Skyscraper Mountain on the left, Grand Park in the distance.

Marmot in Berkeley Park

Stream running through Berkeley Park

Wonderland Trail through Berkeley Park with Burroughs Mountain and Mt. Rainier

Emmons Glacier flowing down Mt. Rainier

Camp for the night in White River campground, behind a historic patrol cabin.