Wonderland Trail: Day 3

Day 3

Wednesday, August 19

Projected mileage: 19.8 miles

Elevation gain/loss: 6000 feet gain/4700 feet loss

Wednesday started well. We all slept well and had a good breakfast. Camp came down quickly and efficiently. Once we had pumped our water for the first leg, we got on the trail by 7:15 a.m. We made it to the next camp two miles up the hill named Devil's Dream by 8:15. Soon after, the close forest of the ridge opened up to meadows and meadows of alpine wildflowers. And marshy ground. And so, lots of mosquitoes and biting flies. The bugs kept us moving quickly past Indian Henry's Cabin (now a Ranger Patrol Cabin).

After Indian Henry's Cabin, we ducked back into the forest for almost an hour until we got to Tahoma Creek and the suspension bridge. Concrete pilings. Metal bars holding wooden slats in place all suspended by two towers and lots and lots of cable. This was cool as hell! We took turns marching across. I went first and enjoyed the bridge bouncing with each stride. My steps seems to create more bounce at either end and to have less wiggle in the center. I stopped and let Jason take my picture. Then Dan tromped across and gave a double biceps "pump" pose. The Jason started across. I had forgotten that he was afraid of heights until right now. He took a step and stopped. He waited for the bounce to dissipate and then took another step. He got faster as he crossed and became confident that the bridge would not, in fact, drop him into the river below. He even handed off his camera to Dan and marched back to the center of the bridge to get his picture taken. This moment really got us stoked.

We marched back into the trees for a little longer and climbed up to a ridge-line. The ridge-line trail turned rocky. The trees grew smaller. Soon, we strode along an old moraine towards Emerald Ridge. The sun had started cooking us as soon as we popped out of the trees. We started moving a little slower as we got closer to the toe of the Tahoma glacier. We made it up and over one last rise and started trucking down the "backside" of the Emerald Ridge. We had more and more shade. We had good views of the end of the glacier and the very, very orange rocks piled up on it's end. Soon we found a great shady spot with big rocks and cold water for lunch about 12:25 p.m.

(The toe of the Tahoma glacier)

We all felt a little dehydrated from the last three hours of effort so we lingered over lunch. We soaked our feet and our shirts. I drank almost two liters of water just during lunch. We got moving again at 1:15 p.m. and dropped down to the big rapids of the South Puyallup river. We crossed the river and started climbing once more. The landscape changed again. We could see tree-covered ridges running away west of us. Wide open meadows ran down to tree line from where we walked. The air didn't move, though, and the moisture from the grasses and flowers turned into stifling humidity. After more climbing and more traversing over the verdant sights for two and a half hours, we reached St Andrews lake. It was smallish, but clear and cool and wet. We pumped some water. We jumped in and went swimming.

After St Andrews lake, we had a short rise and then started dropping again towards the North Puyallup. This felt like a long three and a half miles. We didn't actually reach North Puyallup until 6 p.m. Dan's GPS read 18 miles so far. That couldn't possibly be right. Eighteen miles meant that we should almost be to camp, and we were staring at a trail sign that told us we had five more miles to go to reach Golden Lakes. At least two hours to camp with a climb the whole way and the sun fading.

(Pumping water before hitting the North Puyallup)

(Looking down into the North Puyallup from the bridge)

We started moving up the slope. I put Dan in front and he set a fast pace. We moved fast. And made good time. But we were back into the trees and the air was still and humid and stifling again. We had to stop frequently to mop up sweat and catch our breath. We finally broke out of the forest sometime after 7 p.m. We felt close to our campsite, Golden Lakes, but we weren't. Dan's GPS said we were close to camp, but (except in that weird scale of maps on GPS screens) we weren't. We kept hiking up a ridge for what felt like another hour. We would top a rise and find more rise. We would turn a corner and find another bend.

My shoulders hurt from the heavy load of food. My feet hurt from the almost 60 miles we had walked. I was sweaty. And tired. And ready for my dehydrated chicken fettucini alfredo dinner. And the trail kept winding to the right as the sun kept falling on our left. And finally we topped a rise and found no more "up" on the other side. A lake glinted in the trees just a little way down from us. Almost there! But no. They named the camp Golden Lakes (plural) for a reason. We passed five lakes on the final leg to camp. But finally, finally, finally at 8:18 p.m. we rolled into Golden Lakes campsite and threw down our bags and started setting camp. I was truly bone weary that night when I finally crawled into my sleeping back and stared at the stars for many minutes, almost too tired to fall asleep immediately.

(As a quick aside, Dan's GPS showed 24.8 miles of travel for Wednesday. So surely I had miscounted the miles on the trail map when I did my figures, right? I'm not so sure now. I checked the trail map again and get the same 19.6 miles. The national parks service elevation profile map makes the distance to be a bit longer, but still not 25 miles. Even better, on day 5 we compared the mileages on trail signs to the recorded mileage on Dan's GPS. We found that the GPS was adding about 25% to the distance travelled, but not entirely consistently. So I'm not sure how many miles we did on the 19th, but I am positive that it was the single hardest day of hiking/climbing that I've ever experienced!)