These are links to the photos from the middle part of our Wonderland Trail hike, posted on The Middle Class Forum. Next Sunday I will start with a new trail.
On this site I have included photos for the last three days of my family’s hike of the Wonderland Trail. Photos from earlier days of the hike were posted on my other site, The Middle Class Forum. Here are links for days 1-4 on the Wonderland Trail. The remaining days will be posted next week.
On Day 9 we completed the loop by going from Maple Creek Camp to our starting point at Longmire. It was a relaxing finish to a sometimes challenging journey. Serena (my youngest) declared at the end that, while glad she did it, she would not do another. A few months later she asked me when we would do another journey.
Our morning starts out with one last climb.
Mt. Rainier looming large for one last day.
Our last rest stop at Reflection Lakes
Carter Falls
Finished!
Day 2 on the Pacific Crest Trail was uneventful relative to Day 1 and our feeling of “What the Hell are we doing out here?” I’ve backpacked many thousands of miles facing a variety of hardships, but the end of Day 1 was the only time in my life that I wondered if I could finish. The weather started out below freezing for Day 2, the wind blowing and the snow crusty, but there was more descending than ascending this day. By the end of the day we were in the relatively snow free Yuba River canyon. We hiked past the Jackson Meadow Reservoir, which showed the drought effects of a very light snow year, rather than the immediate effects of the Sierra getting half their snowfall in May.
Day 3 started out even better, as we spent the morning hiking down with light packes into our first resupply point at Sierra Buttes. We picked Donner Pass as a starting point precisely because our first few resupply stops would be close together. At Sierra Buttes a good friend of Savitt’s, T. Fred, was waiting. His family was camping nearby and he invited both Savitt and I to spend the night with them eating steaks and sitting by the fire.
Savitt and I had no worries about being able to catch up with the group. Savitt possessed one of the two guidebooks we used. Though we were no match for Ken at finding our way, the trails were easy enough to follow when we were below the snowline. Above the snowline we could follow the tracks of each other, as we were the only people crazy enough to be out in the wilderness at that time of year.
I was all set to join Savitt and T. Fred, salivating for those steaks, when Howie approached me and said he really wanted me to stay with the group. Of course I had to. Though Ken had more experience I was the figurehead leader and, admittedly, the stronger backpacker. It turned out to be a critical decision.
When it comes to wilderness backpacking what goes down must go up. We left Sierra Buttes with six-days of supplies on our back and a 4,000 foot ascent ahead of us. The weather was dicey even as we left Sierra Buttes; by the time we had climbed a thousand feet we were hiking into driving sleet. Dan was having the hardest time, perhaps because he now had to carry the tent that he and Savitt shared. I gave Howie our tent and took Dan’s. That worked for maybe a half mile.
We ascended on a clear path so we did not really need Ken’s guidebook or orienteering skills. That was a good thing for Ken. Wearing sneakers in cold weather was not the best way to stay warm. He compensated by hiking fast and then huddling under some bush eating M&M’s until we caught up. Dan and Howie insisted I hiked in front of them instead of in the rear. They thought that better motivated them to keep going. I hiked as slow as I possibly could for their sake, yet every time I turned around they were fifty yards behind me.
I took the tent back from Howie and carried both two-man tents, but still could not hike slow enough for them to keep up. We became like a slinky: Ken springing ahead, me a little afterwards and the two tenderfoots in the rear. We would meet together by whatever bush Ken was hiding under and repeat our “slinky” procession. The direction we hiked faced us directly into the storm along the exposed side of a ridge. Sleet whipped my face as if by deliberate insult.
It’s an odd thing of human nature that things don’t seem bad if you know someone else is having it so much worse. Between Ken flirting with hypothermia and the two tenderfoots flirting with collapse I was oddly inspired to just plod along, even trying to provide a moment of cheer here and there. Granted, my attempts at cheer might as well have been at a zombie convention, but I did my best.
Of course we ascended above the snowline again, though mercifully enough this was about the time the storm started to abate. We stuck together again with Ken in his customary lead role and me dropping back to the rear. We set up camp a little short of our destination but everyone was in surprisingly good spirits, relieved that we completed perhaps the toughest climb we were ever going to face on our backpacking adventure. When you reduce your expectations to simply surviving the glass becomes half full. In our tent that night Howie said something to me that made my day: “Kirk, I could not have made it without you.”
Day 4 would bring its own unique problems, and this time I would be the one most in trouble.
More photos for Day 8 of the Wonderland Trail can be found on The Middle Class Forum.
Ridge walking south of Indian Bar. Mt. Rainier in the background
A glimpse of the Tatoosh Range south of Mt. Rainier
A spectacular view of Mt. Rainier
Lupine Meadow and Mt. Rainier
The beginnings of the box canyon over the Cowlitz River
Sharing dessert at camp.
For more photos for this day of my family’s wilderness backpacking journey on the Wonderland Trail, visit The Middle Class Forum.
Heading south from Panhandle Gap with Mt. Adams in the background
Making our way over snowfields
Mt. Rainier Park ranger using flagging for snowfield navigation
The price to pay
Our camp at Indian Bar. "For afterwards a man finds pleasure in his pains." Homer
My family thru-hiked the Wonderland Trail, circumventing Mt. Rainier. Here are shots of our most spectacular moment, reaching Panhandle Gap at 6750′. For more photos go to The Middle Class Forum.
