We embarked on our journey of 93ish miles over a week on Thursday, July 25th. The day before, we'd driven down to Rainier to get our prearranged permit modified (we needed the first day to be shorter; our request had come through with a 20 mile day right off the bat) and then gone back to Seattle to work and finish up getting our things together for the trip. We didn't make it back to Rainier until well after 11 pm (late, given we had 17 miles to hike the first day). Here's a synopsis of our trip:
Day 1: Longmire to Klapatche Park (17 miles)
We walked, a long, long way today. We had lunch in Indian Henry's hunting grounds, which was a beautiful meadow full of wildflowers. I was surprised how useful I found my hiking poles (new for the trip).
(Note to hikers who are planning: It seemed as though the South Pullayup camp didn't have much for drinking water; there was the main river which was glacial runoff (and far too silty for drinking), and a tiny creek that seemed very difficult to filter from. We were very thirsty for our last ascent, since we'd assumed the South Pullayup River camp would have water.)
We were worried that we may have stirred up a bear coming up our last mountain: hiking through the brush, we heard two grunts that I can only describe as "sounding like a bear". B agreed that it had sounded suspicious, so we broke our tired/thirsty silence and tried to make as much conversation as possible until we made it out of the brush. There was a surprisingly long way to go between the peak of the mountain and the campsite.
We were worried that we may have stirred up a bear coming up our last mountain: hiking through the brush, we heard two grunts that I can only describe as "sounding like a bear". B agreed that it had sounded suspicious, so we broke our tired/thirsty silence and tried to make as much conversation as possible until we made it out of the brush. There was a surprisingly long way to go between the peak of the mountain and the campsite.
Klapatche camp itself was at the top of a mountain and rightfully picturesque; one side of the camp, there was a small, clear body of water full of frogs, and on the other, there was a view of the valley below; both sites were nice for watching the sunset. The bugs the whole of this first day were atrocious, though: big black moose flies and mosquitos were ruthlessly biting us even as we hiked. This caused me to wear a long sleeve shirt for a majority of the trip (also probably why I didn't really get sunburned at all).
Day 2: Klapatche to Mowich River (15 miles)
I was kind of grumpy this day and am not sure why. We get to Golden lakes for lunch and I'm hot and uncomfortable (there are a million bugs again) and I don't want lunch. I ate a Snicker's bar instead; I think I was just way too bug-bitten to enjoy sitting and having lunch in the midst of a mosquito orgy/buffet occurring around me. We met a bunch of people today; we started talking to people and asking where they were headed. We hadn't met anyone going anywhere near as far as we were, either the first or the second day. I asked B when we were going to meet the badasses. He looked at me and said, "I think we are the badasses." As I grumpily swatted at the flies, I didn't feel like much of a badass.
We got to camp, which is right along the bank of the Mowich river, we welcomed a reprieve from the bugs. My appetite had returned, and I ate ~1000 calories of freeze-dried mac and cheese, along with another Snicker's bar. I guess I shouldn't skip lunch when hiking this much. We rinsed up in the river (after 2 days of wearing the same clothes, a bit of a rinse was nice). I notice a blister, and decide it needs to be popped. B suggests I use my new Leatherman. He tells me this is a good first use for such a tool.
The camp was nice and quiet; there was one other group camping there. This family didn't look much like it was one for regular outings of this nature (they were built a lot like your average American family), with the two teenaged kids and two parents. They looked exhausted, but when I chatted with them it sounded like they were having a good time. I was quite impressed that they'd decided hike the trail, given it's difficulty and their lack of experience. In my head, I gave them the badass badge of the day.
Day 3: Mowich River to Dick Creek (13ish miles)
We headed up and out of the river basin towards our first food cache. Mowich Lake, a drive-in campsite, was about 4 miles from Mowich river, so we made it there well before lunchtime. We took a long break there (~1.5 hours), sorting through food and drying our clothes and whatnot. We were tired and weren't excited to get going quickly. Mowich lake was gorgeous (a dark, vivid blue with turqouise shallows). The campground itself was crowded (it was, after all, a car campsite).
We made our way out, around Mowich lake and then up to Ipsut pass (more of a climb than we'd realized, and then down a steep, rocky, dusty, plant-overgrown decline towards the basin of a valley. My blister has started to seriously complain, and the knees and feet of my compatriot begin to complain about all the hiking down steep things we've done in the last few days. Morale was poor. We knew we had to climb a good ways out of the basin we were descending into before we made it to camp for the night.
We didn't really stop for lunch until about 4:30 (we'd had some snacks, but we wanted to make our way up towards the last sharp incline we had before we made it to our campsite). I was suddenly hangry enough that I demanded we stop and share some lasagne before making the last 1-2 mile push up to camp. I'd learned my lesson the day before: don't skip lunch.
The last climb we made manageable by stopping and taking a bunch of pictures of wildflowers (forthcoming) on the way up. Again, the climb was very steep and rocky. Along the way, we had a view of a glacier, covered in dirt and gravel almost disguised as a part of the mountain it resided on.
This campsite was my favorite, bar none. The site had only 2 tent spots, and we were the sole proprieters of the camp for the night. It was built into the side of a mountain, with a beautiful overlook onto the valley below facing west (this made for a really nice sunset-watching venue). 15 feet from the tent, there was a beautiful, clean, cool stream (Dick Creek), that looked so inviting that I sat down in it for 10 minutes or so before I even washed my face. As I was getting out of the stream (wearing my awesome berry-colored wool bra and underwear), a random hiker walked by, whose face turned roughly the color of my outfit when he saw me (he walked by without saying anything). We went to bed early this night, since we knew the next day was going to start out difficult.
Day 4: Indian Bar to Sunrise (14 miles) White River (17 miles)
The first few miles of this day were rough, which we anticipated and had woken up early to deal with them before the heat. We hiked straight up a steep section of trail, in the woods. Once we broke out of the woods, we were greeting by a beautiful alpine meadow, still slightly frosty. The flowers here were beautiful. We saw a bunch of marmot-looking creatures scampering about and whistling to each other about our arrival. I ate my first Smores Pop-tart at Mystic Lake campground (and it was delicious). We continued on and up towards Granite Creek; after toiling for several hours, we came across several men hiking in the opposite direction. I was hungry, and so I asked, perhaps a bit too desperately, if we were close to Granite Creek. The men said roughly 1.5 miles more, though they couldn't be sure because they'd been hiking downhill and we were hiking uphill, so it may have been further. After they passed, I told B I was sure we were within about 1/2 a mile of the campsite, based on how long we'd been hiking and the map. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, we reached the campsite. I'm assuming these guys were giving me a hard time, but this was the only time we encountered anyone who wasn't totally friendly on our trip. Again, I ate ~1000 calories of mac and cheese (today was a rock-star day for healthy eating). Our last 5 miles of the day, we walked up another 1000 feet or so and then walked along rocky ridges and glacial meadows, the whole way with beautiful views of flowers and Rainier. We chatted briefly with a man from South Africa. He had a weathered backpack, which had clearly seen a lot of use. He asked us if we were doing the whole trail, and if so, how long we were taking to do it. When we said 7 days, he responded, "Well, we're athletes then, aren't we!" This brought a smile to both of our faces as we trekked into Sunrise, the location of our second food cache and also our camp for the night.
When we got into camp, it was only 3 pm. We got burgers and beer and ice cream (Sunrise has a visitor center). The ice cream was awesome.
Once we'd sorted out our food (note to Jamie; you packed way, way, way too much food for this trip) and left some of it to pick up on our way home, we realized hiking down to White river would make our next day substantially easier (at this point, downhill was hurting both of us more than uphill). So, we stumbled the couple of miles down the hill. I wasn't very hungry, so we made the mistake of just eating snacks for dinner. Some guys wandered by and offered us beer for stories rendered and we obliged; they were starting the trail in a few days. B thought they might have trouble finishing the thing in 8 days (their schedule). I agreed, based on egregious stereotyping. This night, we also met Sandy and Owen (a couple in their 50/60s), who we spent much of the next day with.
Day 5: White River to Indian Bar (11.2 miles)
We got a later start this day, which I'd promised B as penance for lengthening the previous day. We were both pretty grumpy this morning; I'd imagine this had a lot to do with skipping dinner the night before; again, skipping meals is a really bad idea on this sort of trip. Once we got going, we really moved though; we made the 7 miles up to Summerland (another set of alpine meadows with views from the top of a mountain) in less than 2.5 hours. We ate lunch there (well, I ate a few bites of lunch; despite being hungry, I had no appetite for my meal), and then made our way across snow fields and meadows into the last decline of the day towards Indian Bar. This last decline was rough: my blister had blistered over again each of the previous nights, and was pretty unhappy with downhills. Both of our knees were ready to be done with downhill for a good while. When we reached camp, we were very pleasantly surprised: we had the group site, which had a terrific view of Rainier (and other mountains), the river, and the meadows therein. The other sites were a hike up a hill, set into the hill, with much less of a view. The loo (here and at Dick Creek) had no house surrounding it: instead, it had a really nice view of the mountains. We washed up, had supper, and chatted with Megan and Owen and Sandy (and the other couple there). They were all headed to Maple Creek the next day (just 10 miles, mostly downhill), and they offered that we could stay with them rather than hike the couple miles off the trail to Snow Lake.
Day 6: Indian Bar to Snow Lake (14 miles) Longmire (22ish miles)
We were hauling for the first part of this day. We'd realized downhills hurt less if we jogged down them slowly, and so we started off the day working into the valley with several minutes of jogging interspersed with our walking. We were a couple of miles from Maple Creek when we decided that we'd have lunch at Maple Creek and decide if we just wanted to finish the whole thing (we were going to be at Maple creek by about 12:30). Maple creek was, as far as I could tell, the worst campsite I'd ever seen. It was the buggiest, muggiest, area I've ever seen humans choose to vacation in. We didn't even want to sit still for eating lunch, but then, I didn't really want lunch anyway. As of day 4, I'd been having a lot of difficulty making myself eat more freeze-dried food, and today was the epitome of that sickness. No food we had with us sounded remotely appealing. We decided that there was no way we wanted to stay, given the flies and heat and the fact that we were both sick of camping food. At this point, we decided to finish the trail a day early.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur; we made a lot of stops and drank a lot of gatorade. I hadn't really eaten lunch, it was hot and buggy, and we were both exhausted. We had our final climb of the trip, up away from Maple creek, the whole of which was heavily vegitated and as such, very very muggy and buggy. When we reached the top of the hill, the trail skirted the road for a bit, where we took a break. The people passing by in their SUVs and Priuses looked concerned for their safety (at this point, I imagine we smelled particularly potent). From the road, we hit Inspiration Point, the peak of the last climb. From here, we staggered down the hill and through the woods back to the car.
Key Learning Points:
- Hiking poles are surprisingly useful
- As was my lightweight windbreaker/rain pants, despite perfect weather: they are anti-mosquito!
- Extra clothing is surprisingly not
- I get sick of backpacking food on the trail. I guess I'll need more variety next time
- Bug Head-net seems like a good idea for parts of this trip
- Don't skip meals; you will (as in normal life) regret this decision.
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