Wonderland Trail: Day 2

Day 2

Tuesday, August 18

Projected mileage: 14.4 miles

Elevation gain/loss: 3200 feet gain/2500 feet loss

We slept in on Tuesday and took our time breaking camp. We didn't get on trail and marching until 8:30 a.m. We planned Tuesday as a short day anyway; we needed to stop in at Longmire Wilderness Info center to grab our cached food before we headed on to Pyramid creek to camp for the night. We made good time all morning and hit Reflection lake at about 10:30 a.m.

We didn't stay long and kept trucking down the trail until we hit Narada Falls. Neither Jason or I had ever seen Narada Falls, and it's one of Dan's favorite waterfalls. So we took a little 0.1 mile detour to hit the viewpoint. Now there's a parking lot at the top of the falls so people can just drive in and walk down the the falls. The viewpoint had a lot of people and a couple of young children shouted "Look! Hikers!" as we came up the trail. This amused Jason greatly.

After Narada Falls we stepped down the trail and got to Longmire about 1:45 p.m.. We'd done about two thirds of our daily mileage and didn't have far to go to reach camp (3.5 miles and 1500 feet). So we spent some time at Longmire snacking and napping and drinking lots of water. Dan and I soaked our shirts through with water from the faucet. That wet wool shirt felt so good as it went on!

After almost two hours of immobility, we strapped up and headed up the trail. Again, we made good time. We crossed Kautz creek and made camp at Pyramid Creek by 5 p.m.

(The last three pictures are Jason and Dan and I crossing Kautz Creek)

The biting flies and mosquitos came out in force. Despite them, we had a relaxing dinner and even had some time to play rummy. We had started a game on Sunday night. At the end of three hands, we decided that the winner carried the cards and the loser bought the first round of beer when we finished the trip. Jason won.

Every hand.

So Jason got to carry the cards. Dan had one really bad hand at Pyramid Creek. He got stuck in last place and faced the possibility of buying beer for me and Jason on Friday.