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We’d already abandoned plans for a seven-day, 93-mile hike around Mount Rainier and now I was hoping the snow that had long overstayed its welcome wouldn’t spoil Plan B – a three-day, 38-mile hike into the most secluded part of the national park.
No such luck, the incredible shrinking backpacking trip was about to get even shorter.
“Site 1, under water,” said the voice on the other end of the radio. “Pit toilet, under snow.”
Ranger Peggy Lovellford, who’d requested the report for me, offered a consolatory smile then slid a park map across the counter. “You know what’s great,” she said, pointing at a small black mark cozied between the Carbon and Winthrop glaciers. “Mystic Lake.”
I quickly did the math: 20 miles in three days. What I’d originally hoped to be a test of endurance was about to become a leisurely outing and a reminder of the joys of going slow.
It’s a lesson many long-range backpackers learned this summer as the lingering snow made many popular mountain trails too treacherous for rapid travel. And it’s definitely a lesson worth revisiting from time to time for those of us whose backpacking trips so often resemble the rest of our lives – so overplanned we don’t have time to stop and smell the wildflowers.
Considering my four hiking partners – two coworkers, a pediatrician lugging a pack roughly the weight of a Toyota Prius, and a second-grade teacher making her first backpacking trip – signed on for the Wonderland Trail, I was afraid our abbreviated adventure would bum them out.
But by the time we’d finished, it was clear that sometimes doing less actually means you can do more.
THE ROOKIE
As it turns out, a 93-mile hike around Rainier probably would have been a cruel introduction to backpacking for MiRi McIntosh.
Not only was it her first trip, but she was hiking with a torn hip ligament that would have kept less determined hikers home.
“I would have finished even if I lost a limb,” MiRi said, “but I’m grateful for the way it worked out.”
The shorter trip proved to be a perfect backpacking indoctrination for MiRi and a pretty good refresher for Heather Cooper, a pediatrician from Orting who hikes more than anybody in the party but who hadn’t been backpacking since she was a kid.
Loaded down with a spacious tent and a swanky sleeping bag, Heather’s pack weighed 50 pounds, 13 pounds more than mine.
It wasn’t too far out of the Sunrise parking lot on the northeast side of Mount Rainier that it became clear that the women’s colossal packs (MiRi’s wasn’t much lighter than Heather’s) were giving them an extra challenge.
Drew Perine and Matt Misterek, both fit and experienced backpackers, pulled ahead even as MiRi and Heather kept a respectable pace.
Watching MiRi limp and Heather outwork us all for the same experience, I was somewhat concerned they’d end up hating this trip. But they almost always seemed to be smiling.
“It was harder than I thought,” MiRi said. “But looking back, it was very enjoyable. When I was sweating and it was hard and my pack was really heavy I’d ask myself, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But the payment is the view. You are awed in a way that you can’t get from a city or man-made things, awed by how God formed the Earth.
“It really brings you down to size. You are just a little person in a big giant world of things you can’t control. It’s a reality check. We get caught up in an environment where we think we control what happens every day. But out there you are awed by things that you have no control over.”
BACKCOUNTRY SOCIALITES
When you hike big miles, you have very little time to stop and chat with those you pass along the way.
But with hardly any pressure to hike quickly, we were able to stop and talk with several parties along the way.
We met a solo hiker who, with his perfectly styled white hair and matching wrinkle free, button-down shirt, looked as if he just stepped off the cover of Handsome Backpacker Magazine.
We chatted up a quartet of Wonderland Trail hikers from Austin, Texas, who informed us we were probably premature in canceling our plan to do the same hike even though the snow-covered stretch on the east side of the mountain was a little tricky.
We spent about 10 minutes with a ranger on Skyscraper Pass who offered to radio in a new itinerary for us if we wanted to extend our trip.
And we even met a couple hiking the Wonderland Trail for their honeymoon. It was day eight for the newlyweds, and I joked that they didn’t even smell too bad.
The woman laughed and credited a dip in Mystic Lake, while her new husband pointed out he was doing laundry every day.
I wanted to point out he might be setting the bar too high for the next 50 years of married life, but then I thought better of it. Turns out he wasn’t setting it as high as I thought anyway.
Shortly after parting ways, MiRi pointed out I must have been standing upwind from the groom.
“From where I was standing, I don’t think he was doing laundry as well as he thought he was.”
Clearly, he was smarter than I thought.
SIDE TRIPS
When you aren’t pounding the trail all day, you have plenty of time to go off the beaten path.
We all had different highlights on this trip. Heather enjoyed the wildflowers. MiRi was blown away by a short side trip she, Matt and I took to the 7,078-foot summit of Skyscraper Peak. The 360-degree view from the top was dominated by Mount Rainier to the south and we could see as far as Canada to the north.
For Drew, Matt and me, one of the most memorable parts of the trip came on the second morning when we took a quick side trip on a mountaineering trail up a ridge flanking Carbon Glacier.
Reaching the ridge we looked down on Mystic Lake, the centerpiece of a valley carpeted in various shades of green. But more captivating was the glacier, a palatial cracked tongue of the mountain stretching from the base of Liberty Ridge above us to the headwaters of the Carbon River far below us.
Along the way it transitioned from pristine white to dirty gray. Across from us a waterfall plunged over a moraine and vanished under the glacier. We were close enough to the mountain to hear the crack of rock and ice falling off the steep slopes.
Matt and I hiked to about 7,000 feet, getting as close to the classic Liberty Ridge climbing route as our humble skills will ever take us.
And Drew was so smitten by the view, he decided to stay an extra day at Mystic Lake to shoot pictures in the glowing evening light while the rest of us hiked ahead five miles to our next camp, Granite Creek.
By the third afternoon when we were capping our trip with parfaits at the Sunrise snack bar, we were thoroughly enjoying this idea of going slow.
We decided we’d all cross our fingers again next year and hope for less snow so we could take another crack at the Wonderland Trail. But, we agreed, next time we’ll drop the aggressive seven-day itinerary.
Drew proposed nine days. MiRi suggested 10. Most people take at least that long.
We might take even longer.
Craig Hill: 253-597-8497
Craig.hill@thenewstribune.com
Blog.thenewstribune.com/adventure
BACKCOUNTRY PERMITS
Go now: Permits are required to spend the night at a backcountry camp in Mount Rainier National Park. First-come, first-served permits are free and can be reserved as early as one day before your trip at the ranger stations at Longmire and the Carbon River and White River entrances. A park entry pass ($15 for a week, $30 for the year) is required for each vehicle.
Plan ahead: For a $20 reservation fee, you can book a backcountry itinerary two days or more in advance. Reservations can be booked as early as March 15 and requests for popular trips such as the 93-mile Wonderland Trail should be submitted during the first two weeks of the reservation process. Reservation request forms can be downloaded from the park website, nps.gov/mora. They must be faxed or mailed to the park. A park entry pass is also required for each vehicle.
FOUR POPULAR PERMITS: Mount Rainier National Park rangers say four backcountry campsites get more requests than any other.
Summerland: A 4.2-mile hike from Sunrise Road.
Indian Bar: A 7.6-mile hike from the Box Canyon on Stevens Canyon Road or an 8.7-mile hike from Sunrise Road.
Mystic Lake: A 10.7-mile hike from Sunrise or a 13-mile hike from the Carbon River Entrance.
Klapatche Park: A 9-mile hike from the end of Westside Road or 14.1 miles from Longmire.
