Mt. Rainier from Sunrise.
Then I drove up to Sunrise, and put on my boots and prepared to leave, where I discovered... I'd forgotten the bagel sandwiches. Still sitting in the fridge at home. (My climbing and hiking lunch staple is bagels with cream cheese and ham. They never seems to go bad, even after 2-3 days at summer temperatures.) I thought, no problem, I'll buy something at the snack bar. Which... didn't open until 11:00. *sigh* So, I headed on down the trail at about 9:15, with my bag of Cliff bars, and a few old PowerBars. Once I actually got onto the trail, after a couple of miles, it got pretty in a hurry. It felt like hiking through a cliche, tromping along the trail next to this beautiful stream, blue sky, birds everywhere...
There were a few people around Sunrise; I stopped at one point where you can look north at the vista, and there was a few people including a Japanese guy who pointed at the crane patch on my pack.(Last year our family reunion in Wisconsin involved going to the Internationa Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and I sewed one of their patches on my pack.) Turns out he knew about cranes; a lot more about cranes than he knew English, and said something about cranes that summer in Siberia and fly down through Japan. Which I remember that there is a crane that does that, but couldn’t remember, to my shame, which one of the 14 or so varieties of cranes does that. The middle-aged guy with him said that he’d invited his friend over from Japan. This sounds all judgmental and all, but it’s not meant to be. I appreciated them enormously, seeing this guy from Japan who speaks almost no English but recognizes the crane from the silly patch on my pack, and this other guy who befriended this Japanese guy. I hope I never forget that moment with the three of us.
Away from Sunrise things got really isolated. I ran into one guy who, it turned out, was doing the whole Northern Loop in one day - from Isput Creek, so he was looking at about 44 miles. Yeech! He said he’d started at 4:15 that morning. At this point, it was 10:00 or so.
Got to Grand Park around 11:30. I considered eating lunch there, but decided it was too early. So I pushed on for another couple of miles, until I came to a confusing fork in the trail. Since I had to dismount and pull out my map and reading glasses, I decided to just sit there and lunch, despite there being no view or anything. There was a lot of bear grass on this side of the mountain, all past bloom of course, but big and fluffy. Through one forested section the bear grass was so big and bushy it reminded me of the palmettos in the hike down in Tampa.
Pushed on, and at the White River, I stopped again, took off my boots and socks, and just lay back on a log for about fifteen minutes. This seems to be an excellent way to recharge my feet - relieve the pressure, and take the opportunity to clean out all the little bits of rock and other detritus. They talk about how you’re not supposed to do that, because your feet will swell, but after this weekend, that seems like bullshit to me.
So, while I was laying there on the log over the river, it occurred to me that my car keys were still in my pocket, and if I moved wrong they might fall out and into the white water below me. My first instinct was to grab for them, but I subdued that, thinking that, well, they’re safe now, just chill, and thought about what I’d do at Sunrise in the dark, calling Heidi (who else would I call?) asking what I should do to get out of this pickle.
And, of course, my keys didn’t fall out of my pocket, and after I got up off the log I clipped them to the clip in the top pouch of my pack.
Unfortunately, just after I got dressed and started to head out, I got stung by something on my right knee. It looked like there was a stinger left in there, which I brushed off, but I can't imagine why a bee would have attacked me, so maybe it was a wasp. Anyhow it hurt like hell - a tiny stab of pure fire, and then a deep soreness.
Then, on, and up the other side of the valley. An hour and a half of so, and I got to James Lake, so I went out to it, and filtered some more water, changing from my boots to tevas to keep the boots dry, and then went and found a campsite. There are four campsites at this camp, all wooded like a generic forest campground, and one is a 'group' campsite, and there was one already occupied. So I selected site #2, and set up my tent, unrolled my sleeping pad and sleeping bag, and then thought, I'd try to go have a look at the natural bridge today. After all, it was only 3:00 PM, and I had all afternoon to kill.
So, I promptly headed wrong direction; heading down the way I'd come. I didn't figure it out for probably half a mile, until I recognized a distinctive tree.
So, headed back up the hill, and then found the right direction (which I was going to need in the morning anyhow) and after heading down there a bit, decided that this was pretty stupid. To hike 4-5 miles in order to save a 1.5 mile detour tomorrow didn't seem like a very good use of energy. So, I went back to the lake and tried to find a spot to sit in the sun and read "Desert Solitaire" but the banks were muddy and brushy, and after some efforts to traverse the shore, gave up and went back to the camp and sat down with the book there.
This guy Mike was there, who I'd seen at the ranger office. He came in through a different way, a shortcut through the north side of the park, and was there to do some peak-bagging. A garrulous fellow.
Later I went off in my tevas to filter some more water, and kicked a root, and badly hurt my little toe on my right foot. Made dinner around six, and was in my tent by 7:30 with the approaching dusk. Mike came by after dinner and we chatted some more; he's big on doing trips to places like India, and the Inca Trail, and is heading on to the Mt. Everest base camp trek in a couple of weeks.
This first day I met less than dozen people on the trail after I left Sunrise - the solo hiker, the backcountry ranger who checked my pass, and two pairs of hikers heading the opposite direction. And Mike. There was someone hanging around Grand Park, but I didn't talk to them.
Got up around 6:20, and was on the trail by 7:15. Is it irrational that having my stove work as smoothly as it does gives me such pleasure, and a feeling of accomplishment? Certainly, confidence. I was very glad to find that my sore toe doesn't particularly hurt in the boots; that would have made the day pretty miserable. But the sting bothered me through the night, and was still itchy.
Headed out past James Lake, and on up the trail. It climbs steeply, and gets beautiful in a hurry, open rocky vistas like upper Granite Mountain or the area above Robin Lake. In retrospect, it seemed like a good thing not to have gotten the Yellowstone Cliffs site; this was much more impressive in the morning than it would have been in late afternoon when I was tired and wondering how much further I had to go.
I dropped my pack at the head of the trail to the Natural Bridge. .7 miles, the sign said. It felt like more, but I was glad to have seen it; in the morning sun, with the sunlight streaming through beneath it, it seemed more impressive than it would have been yesterday afternoon. And, of course, I had to get down and walk over it. I got about halfway before the going seemed to get pretty treacherous, so I snapped a photo of my shadow on the bridge, and hurried back to my pack.
Up to now, there were VERY few blueberries around; there are tons of bushes, acres of them around James Lake, but they were all bare. I'm guessing bears, since it's hard to imagine that many people come through. I did find some berries in the bushes that were mingled with the heather, which I felt supported my hypothesis.
Down from Windy Gap, the blueberries were much more common, as well as acres of bear grass, as heavy was we'd seen up on Granite Mountain. Passed a couple heading the other direction; they were from New Jersey, the woman five minutes ahead of the guy. Passed the Yellowstone Cliffs campground, but didn't check it out.
The descent to Carbon River was long, and steep, a little like Cascade Pass but more wooded. I was grateful for the shade. I stopped at the bottom where the trails intersected for lunch and boot relief, and headed off again after 20 minutes. Then, I had to take a detour off the trail to poop. I didn't worry too much about being hidden, since I hadn't seen anyone in about three hours. but just as I was finishing, I heard voices, so I stood up in a hurry.
There must have been a dozen people I passed, going one direction or the other, during that mile or so between the Carbon River trail branching and the suspension bridge. Then after, it tapered way off. I passed one guy heading the other direction an hour or so up the hillside, which was mostly exposed and hot, also doing the Northern Loop, then no one for a while. I saw my first view of Goat Island: no goats, of course. Then, passed a couple of guys towards the top of a long rise, who were doing the Wonderland trail in 6-7 days, but who said they'd passed a couple of guys doing in two!! Good lord! Then, I passed another group of three women - one, then two more, also doing the Wonderland Trail.
It took considerably longer to get to Mystic Lake than I'd expected; I'd guessed something like 2 1/2 hours from the Carbon River junction, but it was more like four. And I was getting tired. But hiking along Moraine Creek was pretty beautiful; I took several photos of the water babbling scenically over the mossy rocks.
After Mystic Lake, I got to the Mystic Lake camp ground, and when I saw the sign which said "Sunrise 8.8 miles" my heart broke a little bit. I was thinking 6, or maybe 7. But 9? At this point, it was only about 4:00 PM, so I pulled myself together and did the math and decided that I could be to Sunrise by 8 PM. Not unreasonable.
So I headed on, and after a bit, stopped at another convenient log, took off boots and socks, and lay back for 20 minutes, eating my lunch and drinking water. Then on, to another stream, where I refilled my water bladder for what I figured would be the last time.
Then, on, and on. Not very scenic, not very differentiated. Past a couple on the way to Mystic Lake, who asked how much further it was to Mystic lake (at this point, I estimated a mile and a half), and then another couple of hikers. Down into a river valley scattered with rocks (the West Fork of the White River, for the second time), back up the other side, down into a creek valley, where on the way up the other side was a surveyor's stake and tape that said "yellow-jackets." That kind of scared me, more so when I actually passed the little hole at the edge of the trail with the buggers flying in and out, but I pushed on and didn't get stung.
Then finally, finally, I rounded a bare rise, and before me I saw in the distance the Mt. Fremont fire lookout. And I thought, "I did it!" of course, I knew it was still a few miles, but from here it was all known terrain - no surprise valleys or climbs, no stumbling on bad trails.
I came down the basin into the Sunrise area, which is called Berkeley Park, I scared a small group of three mountain goats, who took off for the trees. I yelled after them: "There hasn't been hunting here in over a century, you cowards!" Contouring down below Skyscraper Peak, I felt like I had won a stage of the Tour de France - completely irrational, perhaps, but that's exactly how I felt. Both Mike and that backcountry ranger had made it sound like I being dangerously ambitious.
From Frozen Lake to the parking lot is about two miles, and I felt every step of it. I got to the car about 10 till 8, which made me feel good, that I'd exceeded my estimate. Even though the last couple of hours were kind of chilly, to the point where I almost wanted to put on a jacket, when I got to the car my t-shirt was totally drenched in sweat.
Drove down the hill, down 410, stopped at the Enumclaw McDonald's for a burger, and got home about 10:20. Not terribly sleepy, since I'd actually gotten a decent amount of sleep in the tent last night. Even though I don't sleep that well in a tent, 11 hours of closed eyes is a good thing.
How hard was it? The second day was probably not as hard as RAMROD. Took about as long, but I wasn't as painfully sore in as many places as after RAMROD. Walking is a much natural posture than crouching over a bicycle, of course. I would have liked to do it with someone else; stuff like this is so much richer when it's shared, but if I had felt a responsibility for anyone but myself, I would have not really enjoyed it; I'd have felt the burden of worrying about how they were feeling, how they were holding up. Maybe my to-do list needs to include finding a compatible backpacking companion.