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!)

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.

Wonderland Trail: Days 0 and 1

I'll try to make this brief and entertaining. I'm not the best action writer but I hope to share a little bit of the fun that Dan, Jason and I had walking the Wonderland Trail.

Day 0

Sunday, August 16

Dan and Jason roll up to my house about 6:30 in the morning. We load up my stuff and goof off for a little bit before we hit the road. I kiss Dev goodbye, pat the dogs one last time and then we roll out of town in Dan's car. The drive is uneventful. We're all relaxed since we don't start hiking until tomorrow (Monday). We chat about our gear and set up. We speculate on the hardest day. I bet that Day 1 is going to be the worst. Dan and Jason both vote for Day 3. We keep running over the gear list and itinerary as we roll up I-5 and near our turn off.

Finally we get to the park. No fee. It's the last no fee day for the fee free weekend on National Parks. Excellent. We drive up to Longmire Wilderness Information Center. The patient ranger helps us sort through our paperwork. Jason doesn't have his paperwork. No permit. We're sweating it. The ranger and Jason keep going through the book looking for his permit. And they don't find it. So they check the computer (which had been down to this point) and don't find him there either. They had rejected his permit application so he wasn't on file. The ranger added him to Dan and my permit since each camp would easily fit all three of us. So we logged in our cache and left three and a half days worth of food at the ranger station.

We started the long drive to Sunrise for our first camp. Generally this takes about two hours. We didn't feel rushed and kind of moseyed along. We wanted to stop at Paradise but there was no parking and the crowds were crazy. Instead of waiting for the shuttle we just kept driving. We stopped for a couple of view on the way to Sunrise. There was no parking at Sunrise either. So once again we got back into the car and drove. This time we went to White River Campground and established our last civilized night for five days.

We drink a couple of beers. We cook up some spaghetti and beef and sauce. We gorge ourselves. We sleep. in a big tent on air mattresses.

Day 1

Monday, August 17

Projected mileage: 24.8 miles

Elevation gain/loss: 4400 feet gain/7830 feet loss

Morning rolls around too soon. The sun's not up yet but the alarm rings us out of our slumber. We pack up camp by the light of headlamps and drive back to Sunrise at 6400 feet on the northeast side of Mount Rainier. It's not crowded this morning. We can find parking. We sort our gear again. Jason brews up a tub of coffee in his Jetboil. We look at each other and the mountain and our coffee. We swallow the last but of caffeinated goodness, rinse our cups and strap in.

6:45 am and we are finally doing this. Months of anticipation building to this moment. Planning, obsessing even, for this trek. And it starts with a step. One step. Anticlimactic and momentous. We decide that the motto for this trip is "One step at a time." Trying to wrap or heads around 93 miles of walking is just too hard. One step at a time. We'll get there bit by bit. One step at a time.

So every trip has at least one piece of gear break or malfunction. It's sort of a law of outdoor adventure. And it keeps things interesting. Not even one hour into our trip, we pull up to the junction that puts us on the Wonderland Trail for real. It's 7:22 am. I pull the camera out of my waist pack and fumble it while trying to turn it on. And I drop it.

I drop it onto the extended lens.

The camera's out of commission. "Dev always hated this camera anyway," I say to myself after I finish cussing a blue streak. At least we have Jason's camera still. So we can keep taking pictures. And the added bonus is that we got the major gear failure out of the way very early in the trip.

We make pretty good time after the breaking of the camera. We stride right along and through Sunrise Camp around 7:45 am. We circle back down the White River Campground about 8:55 am and took a break.

Side note: We didn't just start at White River for the loop because there was no long term car parking like there is at Sunrise.

Then we really got into our stride. We crossed the White River over a couple of log bridges and then made a long traverse around Goat Island Mountain. After the traverse we made it into the drainage for Fryingpan creek and started climbing up and up. We passed through Summerland Camp and hit Fryingpan Creek at 12:30 p.m.. We sat in the sun soaking our feet in the frigid glacial melt. I can only keep my feet in for 30 seconds or so at a stretch and then I have to pull them out of the water. After they warm up, then they go back into the water for another dousing. I did this cycle for about 20 minutes. It felt so good. And during this process, I reach into my pack and pull out a 9 ounce summer sausage to share with Dan and Jason. Dan looks ecstatic as he eats his portion. Jason counters my luxury with some mini cheese wheels. Yum!

We suit up about 1:05 p.m. and start the march to our high point for the day: Panhandle Gap at 6445 feet above sea level. And we get there only 30 minutes after lunch. We're marching through bare rock swept clean by wind and snow. Beautiful and barren. Stunning landscapes and awesome views roll out from under our feet on the ridge. We ride the ribbon of trail up and down through several dished basins. We come out of the last depression onto a ridge where we can see the five huge waterfalls that start the Ohanapecosh River by dropping thousands of feet down sheer cliffs from the Ohanapecosh Glacier.

The Wonderland Trail winds down the ridge to Indian Bar Camp, dropping elevation quickly and without much shade. The sunny 1600 foot descent drains all three of us. We hit the camp and drop our packs and find some shade. As Dan wanders off to find the camp toilet, Jason pulls out his Jetboil stove and brews up a triple serving of coffee (he brought a full half pound of fresh ground coffee in his pack!). We sit on the wood bridge overlooking the hydraulics of Waulaukaupauken Falls and drink our coffee and chat with another Wonderland hiker for most of an hour.

The other hiker has been on the trails for 10 days and expects he'll finish in two more. He's on a three month leave of absence from some cubicle farm in Riverside, California. He won't be more specific about his job so I can only assume he doesn't particularly care for his current career all that much. He does tell us that he endured an epic 5 day rain storm the previous week on the trail. He described a heavy, cold and soaking rain that lasted all day and stopped him from most of the side trips. He's happy for the hot and sunny weather we now enjoy on the trail.

Invigorated by almost an hour of rest and a cup of coffee, we jump back on the trail about 4 p.m. and leave Indian Bar behind. We still have a long way to go to make Maple Creek before sun down. We finally reach Nickel Creek camp at 7, and then Box Canyon shortly after that. We've dropped another 2500 feet since INdian Bar. Deep in the Canyon and in the trees, we start to lose our light. Maple Creek sits about two and a half miles away. Dan's starting to slow a little from the long day. So we come up with a stupid plan. Dan has his GPS and will roll into camp at his pace after he rests some more at Box Canyon. Jason and I will hot foot our way down the trail to hit camp, grab a spot, filter some water and get dinner ready for when Dan shows up.

I don't recommend this plan ever. In my D&D days, this was called "splitting the party" and was a big no-no. Turns out, it feels even worse in the real world. Especially when that real world is dusk in the woods in bear country.

Jason and I hit camp after the longest mile and a half I've ever experienced (up to that point). I was cursing under my breath trying top set my tarp up. Once I had that done I was going to take a liter of water and a headlamp and head back down the trail for Dan. Jason had pumped some water and started dinner. I only had the tarp halfway up when we heard a creak-clank noise. A noise like Dan's coffee mug on the outside of his pack. I see a headlamp coming. It's Dan! He flew down the trail and got to camp about 10 minutes after we got there.

So here comes the big confession. When we started out from Sunrise that morning, we headed west out to the Frozen Lake intersection. When we hit the Wonderland Trail and headed south we soon hit another trail junction with a sign pointed to Sunrise... 0.5 miles away. ARRRRGH! We added three miles and an hour of hiking to our day because a stupid navigational error on my part. We really could have used that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day!

Wonderland Trip report: Short form

Dan, Jason and I hiked the Wonderland Trail last week. Unsorted, un-winnowed, and unedited pictures can be found here. I'll be choosing the good ones and reorganizing the order as the week goes on.

Vital stats for the trail and trip:
Length: 93 miles
Accumulated elevation gain: 20,000 feet
Time to finish: 5 days
Start: Monday August 17, 2009 at 6:45 am
Finish: Friday August 21, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Average pack weight without food: 21 pounds

We had so much fun on the trip. The weather was perfect and the scenery absolutely stunning. I'll post a longer more detailed report this week.

Reframing the argument

An eloquent counterpoint to the "death panel" statements coming from Palin and her ilk.

New favorite website

Teton Gravity Research
Awww Yeah.
Git after it.....

Walking is still badass

I love climbing. I love snowboarding. I love riding my bicycle; around town and across the state. But it's funny that the videos and stories that hit me the hardest involve the most basic movement that humans know: walking. It's simple. It's slow. It can be boring or it can be a path to enlightenment. However, I don't think that it's an accident that so many great stories of discovery (internal or external) start with walking. It's something that almost all of us have in common. It's something we can all do. It's the ultimate power of self determination because if you don't like where you are then you can grab a bag full of stuff and start walking.

This following video is stunning. You can see more about Christoph Rehage's trip here.

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

A Hessian by any other name

(Image from Washington Crossing Historic Park)

I still remember the dim view that my American history texts took of the use of Hessian "mercenaries" by the Brits during the Revolutionary War. Xe, formerly Blackwater, is now being investigated *again* for murder, arms smuggling and other crimes. I really hope Erik Prince fries for all the evil he's done. He's drained the U.S. military of talent by paying soldiers money to work for him as mercenaries and he's used our tax dollars to spread death and fear overseas.

I really wanted to like it

I got a great deal on a Ex Officio Air Strip Lite shirt at REI on Sunday. Quick dry fabric. Nice texture. Great venting. Old school explorer sachet. Only one problem; the shirt is designed for average or stocky built men. I am not. Not stocky. Not average build. I'm a stick. Sadly, the shirt drapes on me like Old Glory on a flagpole in still air. And if there's a breeze, well, then it billows out like a muumuu.

Sigh.

In the name of "balance"

This guy just nails it!

If you watch ONLY ONE discussion about health care reform...

Then watch this one. The gentleman interviewed was an executive in the industry for over a decade (? I gotta double check this because I can't remember right now). Really interesting stuff.

Balanced Lunch

3 guys, 9 hours, 26 miles

Dan and Jason and I hiked the Wildwood Trail in Forest Park from Germantown Road to the Portland Zoo. We rolled along pretty well until the very last part of the hike. At about 3 miles from the end of the trail we all slowed down just a wee bit. Overall, it was a good training hike for the Wonderland Trail. We got through the mental barrier of doing 25 miles in a day even if we had virtually no elevation gain.

Don't know why Brian thought this was a good idea

How far we've come....

From Poor Man's Heli (Jeremy Jones' blog)

Holy Crap + Way Cool

= Bear.

As in, I saw one today from less than 20 yards away. (Please note the invisible and numerous exclamation points on the end of that sentence.)

I did a quick overnight backpack trip this weekend. (I'll try to post maps and a trip report later). And I'm rolling along this morning on the Eagle Creek trail. It's not the touristy and well travelled part of the trail though. This is the section of trail used to connect to the Pacific Crest Trail or to go to Wahtum Lake the hard way.

So this section of trail gets a little less traffic than the part with all the pretty waterfalls. It's pretty bushy. Almost overgrown. Very pretty and a little wild. As I was about to see.

I'm rolling along (like I said) at a good pace and come around this bend on the trail. Not 50 feet away something cracks some branches in the underbrush. I look over and see black fur cavorting around. I think "Someone brought their dog out pretty far." And I start to lift my eyes to scan for the owner.

My eyes never get up the the trail. I'm already whispering "oh shit" as my eyes swing back and confirm that I'm looking at a bear.

That doesn't know I'm there.

I turn around and walk five paces back up the trail before I remember that you never run or retreat from black bears. So I spin around again and lift up my trekking poles (to make me look bigger) and I say "Hello bear!"

He musta been pretty startled. It took him (or her) about 15 seconds to cross the drainage and go up and over the lip on the other side. He might still be running, he took off so fast.

So. I'm glad I remebered the right approach for an encounter with a black bear. I'm glad outdoor magazines publish those articles about once a year.

But mostly I'm glad that a black bear's initial response to surprise is to run away.

Oh, and it's really freakin' cool that I saw a real live wild bear today.

Reason 864 to love Portland

I can get up early on July 4th.
Drive out to Mt Hood.
Hike for an hour and 45 minutes with my snowboard.
Strap into my snowboard.
Ride down a groomed slope for 20 minutes.
Unstrap from my snowboard.
Hop in the car and go to a cabin by the river and swill beer all afternoon.

All before lunch.
Yeah.

Great finish to July 4

Dev sitting in front of the Sandy River at Erica and Jefferson's
family cabin. Awesome.

What a way to start the 4th

This was a huge book for me in my teens

Amazing how much of what Gibson described actually worked out....

Neuromancer turns 25: What it got right, what it got wrong