[zimmertr]

After completing my trip I had originally only planned to post that the South Mowich River bridge was repaired in the Wonderland Trail planning/info thread but had a few follow-up questions and then the writer in me took over. Sorry, he's a tad negative sounding and not very good at writing but here's the novel. I promise the trip was a LOT more fun than it sounds and I've been left craving more now that I'm home. Honestly this was one of the best memories I've ever made in my life. Enjoy. Pre-Trip We drove to the Gateway Inn outside of the park the evening before and left the next morning for Longmire to activate our permit and get started. Funny how the amenities in our National Parks don't seem to compete with places like Yosemite despite how much they're traveled. I imagine someone could have sneezed the door to our room off its hinges if they wanted, ha. We had a last dinner at Rainier BaseCamp Bar and Grill and had breakfast the next day at Copper Creek where I was served the best biscuits and gravy of my life.

Longmire -> Devil's Dream The first few climbs out of Longmire definitely demoralized my Michigan friend as he doesn't do much hiking but we prevailed in the end. I heard "I don't know if I can do this" once or twice haha. He eventually engaged "trudge mode" though and we made it to Devil's Dream where we were greeted by a million mosquitos. We each were bitten a few dozen times, no joke. The waterfall area where people collect water has a really nice bathing pool up above though. You can get to it if you scramble the left side of the falls. Just make sure no one is collecting water below you if you choose to use it Devil's Dream -> Klapatche I had warned my party that the first few days would probably be the toughest but with the heat and steep climbs this day became their low point. Twice I had to push on ahead, drop my pack, and return to sherpa my friend's pack up a few hundred feet. And the bugs near Indian Henry's Patrol Cabin were at their worst for the entire trip; not a great way to begin a morning. Very pretty though.

Thank You Henry

After we gained Emerald Ridge I scrambled up to about 6,000' to the right of the trail and was greeted with some pretty phenomenal views of the Tahoma Glacier and its drainage. You can see me centered in the second photo.

Tahoma Moraine

Photo Taken By: Kayti K.

Once we made it to St. Andrews Lake and hopped in for a quick swim morale quickly made a change for the better. But it was definitely low before that point

Photo Taken By: Kayti K.

The last mile to Klapatche went pretty easily after swimming, eating, and filtering. And we were all very pleasantly surprised by how nice Klapatche was compared to Devil's Dream. This ended up being the inflection point for the trip where moods began to improve

Aurora

Sunset

Klapatche -> South Mowich River We were pretty nervous for this day given the status of the river crossing and had planned to get an alpine start but missed our alarm and didn't get out of the tent until about 5:30AM. That turned out to be inconsequential though since we were both hiking pretty slowly and didn't arrive until late AND the bridge was miraculously put in the night before by the Rangers. We stopped at Golden Lakes and went for another (much warmer) swim and hung around for a couple hours. My party was beginning to find their stride around this point and we were moving quicker between elevation but their feet started to blister; which became a chronic end-of-day issue for most of the rest of the trip. Thankfully my Altras were performing perfectly and I didn't have any blistering until the very last day.

Golden Hour

Once we arrived at camp we were surprised to find that the rangers had over-booked the site as two of the spaces were crushed by fallen trees. Another party had decided to camp in the shelter and make space for us out front which was very much appreciated.

Smashed Campsite

Exhausted

Beware the toilet at South Mowich River btw. It was scary. South Mowich River -> Mowich Lake I had been telling them that the first few days would be hard but we had budgeted a rest day and it would only be 4 miles! I might have neglected to mention it was all uphill though Also, the worst was yet to come. We cranked out the climb to Mowich Lake in about 90 minutes and had the rest of the day to relax and socialize. We went for another swim and then started looking for our food cache only to find that it was missing! We contacted a friend via satellite and had them call the rangers to find out if it was set to be delivered the next morning, but were shocked to find it had been delivered 3 days beforehand. We went back to the cache site and ended up discovering it was, in fact, there. But had broken open during shipment and the rangers had taped it to a second bucket. We had seen the taped combo the first time around, but assumed it belonged to someone else and never thought to check the label. A little embarrassing in hindsight . But the trip was saved! Around this time we noticed a change in the atmospheric pressure and some cloud cover so we decided to query a weather report and found it was supposed to rain heavily for the next 2-3 days. Awesome we thought, as those were allegedly the most scenic. Good thing we brought ponchos.... Nothing but beautiful summer weather in Washington until our trip and then a ton of smoke and rain haha. Another memorable part about this site was that there was an ultrarunning event occurring between Longmire and Mowich Lake and runners slowly trickled in throughout the day. I stepped out of my tent around 2AM to pee and watched a poor soul come into camp via a headlamp in the pouring rain many hours behind a lot of his peers. That must have SUCKED big time. Mowich Lake -> Cataract Valley I don't think my partners knew much about Spray Park before this day. One even made jokes about it being the WORST water park he'd ever been to. But I sure was looking forward to it so my spirits were high. We had hopes the rain would burn off in the early AM so we hung around in the tent until around 11 but it only seemed to be getting worse. Eventually we gave up and started to break camp. My Michigan friend promptly gave up trying to keep things dry and just broke down his tent and hid in the bear boxes while my girlfriend and I carefully broke down our tent under our rainfly which turned out to be quite effective at keeping things dry! Eventually we were ready to hit the trail.

Photo Taken By: ?

We trudged through the rain for an hour or so until around half way through Spray Park when it fortunately started to calm and turn to mist.

The Worst Water Park

One of the two side trips I REALLY wanted to do was scheduled for this day, taking a boot path to Cat Eye Lake and the Flett Glacier. Unfortunately my partners weren't having it so we decided to skip it. Fortunately Spray Park seems to be very accessible so I'll probably make a trip back there in the coming weeks to check it out. Eventually the rain and mist subsided after we went over the high point and we stopped for lunch where I accidentally shot this Salomon Soft Flask advertisement.

Another Salomon Ad

I decided to scramble down into Mist Park for some photos while they finished eating and actually stumbled across the remains of an old helium balloon. Presumably many years old based on how rotten and crumbly the leash was. After grumbling to myself about pollution I pocketed it and returned to my group. In the second photo you can see me standing on the talus on the bottom left.

Curse Your Balloons

We finally made it to Cataract Valley and had to have a yard sale with our gear to dry it all out. The sun was very bashful though, so it was mostly an exercise in futility. Little did we know it would take another 2 days before we felt dry again.

Everything is Wet

As a side note, we found the toilets at this site hilarious and referred to them as "The Machine" for the remainder of the trip. I assume they were compost toilets? Unfortunately I did not take a picture of them. Cataract Valley -> Granite Creek This was going to be a big day and we knew it but I was equally excited for it as the day before. I had been eager to put my boots on a glacier since moving here four years ago and thought this would certainly be the day given the ease of access to the lateral moraine of the Carbon Glacier. Unfortunately it rained again. And it rained hard. Pretty much nonstop through Mystic Lake. So we decided to skip the other side trip I was stoked about. Fortunately we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world so that made it for it. And seeing the Carbon and Winthrop Glaciers, even without standing on them, was truly epic.

Carbon Moraine

Winthrop Moraine

We bathed in the icy Granite Creek and made camp for the night. The weather had continuously improved throughout the day so we hopefully checked our InReach for another weather report and were delighted to find nothing but sunshine for the rest of the trip. However we had one last hurdle to face: a low of 37 for the night. It was cold for us in our 30 degree bags but thankfully we had down jackets and mummy bags. Our Michigan friend was in a traditional sleeping bag and didn't have the same cold weather gear as us. We probably slept for 4-5 hours between us that night.

Photo Taken By: Kayti K.

Granite Creek -> White River I knew this day would be scenic as I had been to Sunrise before and explored the Burroughs area. Plus it was our first day of sunshine after the torrential rain so spirits were high.

After Two Days of Rain

I had only been up to Second Burroughs before so I was excited to tackle Skyscraper & Third Burroughs while in the area. I prepared my friends by telling them we had a day of "mostly downhill with some optional peakbagging and possibly a hamburger at Sunrise". I made sure to downplay the optional aspect of the peakbagging as much as possible and really talked up the food. Eventually they consented when we gained the pass below Skyscraper and our day of fun in the alpine began. Sorta. Skyscraper ended up being totally socked in.

Photo Taken By: Josh L.

A Long Way Down

As we made our way back down Skyscraper we met up with some dayhikers hanging out on the Wonderland trail and chatted for a bit about mountaineering, the PCT, and some other banter. Eventually the topic of us heading towards Burroughs came up. I had planned to take a mapped but off-trail route to second Burroughs from Skyscraper and the day hikers couldn't fathom that. They insisted we had to instead head toward Frozen Lake and then turn back and cross over First Burroughs. No one seemed to understand that doing that would cause us to travel miles and thousands of feet of change out of the way. Plus I doubted I would be able to get my party to turn back towards Burroughs if we continued on the Wonderland for another hour.

Their confidence paired with me staring at Gaia on my phone for a few minutes further reduced my party's confidence in me to an almost non-existent level but they hesitantly agreed to follow me in the end. The pass went as easily as expected but the negative energy emanating from my party who clearly did not think I knew what I was doing made me decide to name the areas "TJ Sucks Pass" and "I Hate TJ Basin". Shown here:

"TJ Sucks Pass" Above "I Hate TJ Basin"

Seriously though... there wasn't even a single class 2 section and 75% of it was marked by cairns and a boot path........ We eventually made it up to Third Burroughs and were greeted with, by far, the best views I have ever had of our majestic mountain. The Winthrop Glacier's crevasses and seracs were breathtaking. I believe there is a non-zero chance that my friend was the first man to ever grill spam on Third Burroughs mountain, though I'd be delighted to have someone prove me wrong.

Crevassed

First Man to Fry Spam

And, of course, who could forget that hike back towards Sunrise via the Moon?

Tundraesque

The restaurant at Sunrise turned out to be closed when we finally made it there which was a bummer. Though I later learned it was more of a snack bar than a restaurant so perhaps the closure actually saved us some heartache. We dropped the last couple thousand feet down to White River quickly, and collected our second food cache where we eagerly awaited half a fifth of Jack Daniel's Tennessee Fire whiskey.

White River -> Summerland The day started out flat and easy but quickly grew hot and steep. Arriving in Summerland was pretty amazing as I'm sure you're all well aware. I had grand aspirations of climbing Meany Crest but couldn't get anyone to do it with me so opted not to. I bathed in the river through Summerland and laid on a rock in the sun for an hour. There was one pool of water with a bazillion tadpoles in it which was very cool. It felt like paradise.

Polywogs

Photo Taken By: Kayti K.

Unfortunately the facade quickly fell away when we realized we had cell service. I made the dumb decision to take my phone out of airplane mode and was quickly bombed with Twitter notifications about Afghanistan, COVID, etc and decided cell service wasn't for me that day and turned it off again. Alas there was no regaining that sense of serenity one can only achieve by first spending a week outside. The bear pole at Summerland was VERY tall and VERY packed. I'm surprised there wasn't at least a second pole given how prone the area is to bear activity. It took us several minutes to hang our dry bags since we were the last party to do so. :facepalm:

A Very Tall Pole

Summerland -> Nickel Creek It was tough to leave Summerland. The cell service interruption and the realization that we were really only ~24 miles from Longmire made it feel like the trip was already over. But I knew Panhandle Gap & the Cowlitz Divide would be something special. So I rallied my party at the crack of down. I played "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by The Proclaimers on my phone and told them if we tried hard enough we could make it out that evening and feast on McDonalds.

They didn't share my confidence, however, and the heat of the day and their foot blisters sapped their gusto after the climb beyond Indian Bar. So we stopped at our reserved site at Nickel Creek for one last hurrah. Traveling over Panhandle Gap was pretty epic. I always love walking on later-summer snowfields and the alpine basins are probably my favorite part of hiking in Washington. The views of Mt Adams were amazing as usual.

The Pass

Photo Taken By: ?

Photo Taken By: Kayti K.

Photo Taken By: Kayti K.

Climbing Back Up

Adams Highway

Nickel Creek -> Longmire We broke camp after sleeping in and got to talking with another group who had stayed at Nickel Creek the night before. Evidently it was their first night on the trail. Hopefully my disheveled look and stank didn't scare them off for what was to come. In a way, I felt very jealous that they were just beginning. But simultaneously so excited to see my cats and sleep in a bed.

10 Days In

This felt like the longest day for me. And by distance it was. But the trail was easy, albeit overgrown. I was surprised to learn that Reflection Lakes is right off the road. I guess that explains why I always see it photographed everywhere. Here's my contribution.

A Famous Reflection

I also found a beautiful Amanita just off the trail near Lake Louise. Which, by the way, may have been the most swimmable lake I've ever seen in Washington. Unfortunately my partners didn't feel like dropping down to it so I only had a moment at the lake before I had to turn around and catch back up with them. Can anyone confirm it's worth a trip back for that?

Amanita

Highly Swimmable

We finally made it back to Longmire and some tears were shed. We asked a nice lady at the Longmire Inn to snag our graduation photo for us. After four years of hiking in this beautiful state, I'm pretty sure completing Wonderland was the final exam of my baccalaureate degree in hiking.

Photo Taken By: ?

Longmire -> ? We snagged McDonald's on the way home which, as you may have expected, was nowhere near as good as we had dreamed it would be. Also saw some people drinking liquor in their car at the gas station which really corrupted my mood further. We held on to a few more days of freedom before my friend had to return to Michigan and work but now that's done and over. I still have two weeks of vacation left and I'm trying to figure out how to spend it wisely. I might head up towards Chikamin Lake/Peak tomorrow afternoon. I have a new void in my life to learn how to fill. Some other musings that I didn't capture above:

• The huckleberries & salmonberries were amazing.
• Meeting the other groups (especially our elders) were the best part of the trip.
• Blisters can really ruin someone's day. Make sure you have put at least a comfortable 20 mile day into your shoes before tackling something like this.
• We didn't see a single bear, which was a huge disappointment for me. I fully expected to see them multiple times.
• I had no idea how disgusting wearing running tights for 10 straight days would become. I would also cache clean socks & underwear in addition to food if I were to do it again.
• The rain really sucked but it was more mental for me than physical. I was just disappointed with the reduced visibility, not being wet and sticky.
• I am so fortunate to live in such a beautiful place and have the freedom over my life to do something like this.

More photos here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWr5idK

[williswall]

Congrats! BTW, planning on stepping on the Carbon or Winthrop glacier…not a good idea.

[Olympic Hiker]

It was 20 years ago this month that I did the first half of my Wonderland adventure. At the time I wasn’t able to do the whole thing all in one go due to time constraints. Two years after hiking the half I had already hiked, I had the time to complete the half I hadn’t done. Someday I would like to hike it all in one trip.

[jaysway]

Great TR! Very well written. Looks like an amazing trip, glad that you came away from it happy despite some rain and places you didn't get the chance to explore. The more time I spend researching MRNP, the more time I want to spend in this place. The WT looks awesome, and I hope to do it some day, but there are so many other places to explore as well. At least for now, I'm hoping to tackle little sections of the WT combined with some cross-country sections as weekend trips. Anyway, great TR, looking forward to reading about what is next.

[jaysway]

williswall thanks for your website, which contains a wealth of information on MRNP. I've gotten so many great ideas for trips from reading your website.

[NWtrax]

Glad you found your stride and made the most of it out there! Well done. Thanks for the report.

[Foist]

Great report! I camped with my kids at Devil's Dream about a month ago and the bugs actually weren't so bad. Based on reports, we were incredibly lucky.

[fourteen410]

[Felpudo]

Great write-up! It reminds me of my own trail journals, which are all me complaining When I did the Wonderland, the weather was split into thirds: 1st was smoky, then clear and perfect, then torrential downpour. It's neat to see others trips, between a few of them I was able to see all of the trail

[KascadeFlat]

Awesome TR! Thanks for taking the time to write it up and share your little slice of wonderland with us. It has it all! Intrigue, mystery, conflict, and glorious resolution. "I hate TJ basin" made me laugh. Brings back memories of times that I, too, have stood at a crossroads looking at a map with a route carefully planned from my couch. Being a trip leader can be unforgiving!