3 days, 50 miles on the Northern and Mother Mountain Loops at Mt. Rainier NP

3 day trip consisting of 50+ miles, 14,729' of elevation gain, and 14,768' of elevation loss connecting the 2 major backpacking routes in the northern section of Mt. Rainier National Park.


Day 1


Berkley Park


Falls by the lower crossing of the West Fork of the White River
Windy Gap area.
Natural Bridge
Yellowstone Cliffs.
camp 1




Day 2

Lower Carbon River crossing.

Mowich Lake
The top of Seattle and Spray parks.



Day 3

Upper Carbon River bridge crossing.
Carbon Glacier
Mystic Lake

Overall the trip was brutal and my knees hated me, but the scenery and memories were priceless.

Spray Park, Mt Rainier 8/26/2009

Today I awoke, and headed out for a solo day hike at Mt. Rainier National Park. The plan was to head out to the Wonderland trail and take the alternate route to the top of Spray Park and swing by Spray Falls on the way up. Along with taking a couple side routes within Spray Park. I finally got to the trail head around 10am and was on the trail by 10:20 ish. The trail drops fairly quickly and than meanders up and down with a few good little climbs in between the trail head and the Spray Falls junction.

Shortly after the parking lot.

From here it's about .1 miles to the "viewing area" of the falls. I arrived at the viewing area and realized that I could only see half the falls... So I took charge and scoped some crossings and crossed the falls outlet creek... After the PCT section creek crossings just aren't a big deal. Granted this one had some slick rocks and some pole vaulting with my trekking poles included... But I still made it just fine. WOW! The view of the falls was a lot better upstream on the other side of the creek.

Spray Falls.
Spray Falls and I.
After the pictures I pulled out some snacks, crossed back over the stream and started powering up the climb into Spray Park. It was a slight wake up call about keeping a pace up steep hills... Rainier is no mid west park with gracefully climbing trails. The switchbacks are straight and to the point, they climb the hill! After passing some people on the way up, I took the first side trail to the headwaters of Spray Falls.

A stream alongside the trail during the switchbacks to Spray Park.
The first real hint of meadows. The headwaters of Spray Falls side trip is near this corner.

Wildflower shot looking back down the trail. When I got back to the main trail I quickly repassed the people that I passed on the climb and continued on to the next side trail where I wandered back for quite awhile and saw several tarns, tons of flowers, and some close ups of Observation Rock. When I returned to main trail I again passed the groups of people and took another side trail that kind of got iffy and all the tarns conflicted each other, but I wound up near the base of Eagle Cliffs and Observation Rock...

More stair steps... It's the one thing that drives me crazy about rainier...
More angles of Rainier.
A great wildflower plus Rainier shot.
Along the second side trail.
A marmot chilling in the meadows a few feet away.
The barren terrain up the 3rd side trip.
views from near Observation Rock.
About where I turned around below Observation Rock.
Looking across a tundra like terrain towards the Tacoma area.
When route finding on the side trail started to go to hell I headed back down to the main across a snowfield to where the trail started to head down hill into Seattle Park and the Carbon River drainage. At this point I turned around, taped my feet up and headed back down to the parking lot. Where again I passed the same crowd of people... On the last section I wound up running nearly a mile of it... I wound up picking up a fairly aggressive yellow jacket that was buzzing me and constantly trying to land on me to sting me... So I kept running ahead and sometimes I'd lose it for a few minutes, and sometimes it'd still be doing circles around me while I ran! Than after I thought that I had finally lost it, it would come back and I'd jet ahead again... Scary stuff! Especially since I'm deathly allergic to some kinds of bees... Granted I had an Epinephrine shot and benadryl with me, but I don't want to have to use them because it's never fun. I finally lost the bee just before I reached the Parking lot... I got back to the parking lot at roughly 3:20pm and headed home.

Pan Handle Gap and Summerland MRNP July 24, 2009

Well on Friday Sarah, Ford and I headed out towards Summerland and the Pan Handle Gap, which is off of the Wonderland Trail in the Mount Rainier National Park. The distance to Summerland is roughly 9 miles round trip and to Pan Handle Gap it is roughly 11 miles round trip. The trip to Pan Handle Gap is just over 3000 feet in elevation gain, while Summerland is only about 2500 feet of gain.






We started out early in the morning, and only stopped for coffee and breakfast on the way to the Frying Pan Creek Trail Head. After we arrived and got the gear situated we were walking down, I mean up the trail...

Shortly down the trail at one of the first views out of the trees.


More views as they appear further up along the trail.


Ford approaching the Frying Pan Creek crossing.


Frying Pan Creek and the lower crossing.


Me crossing Frying Pan Creek.


Shortly after the bridge you walk through this beautiful meadow with a Great View!


Coming around one of the last switchbacks as you enter the large Summerland meadows.


Summerland Meadows!


Heading towards the camp at Summerland through the lush Meadows.


More Summerland!


Summerland with the view of Rainier.


Rainier.


More Summerland.


Getting close to the edge of the meadows.


An upper branch of Frying Pan Creek.


The bridge continuing on to Summerland.


Some mini icebergs floating in a tarn just past the upper creek crossing.


The picture doesn't do justice of this little snow field, one of the first sketchy crossings before you hit Pan Handle Gap. If you slip that snowfield almost goes all the way to the basin floor a couple hundred feet below.


This crossing was a little more intimidating. The previous one there was actual footings kicked in and as long as you took your time it was no big deal. The particular crossing had no kick steps kicked into the snowfield. I started to kick steps and only about a 6 or so steps into the field the snowfield beyond was too hard to kick steps in. At this point I got a little vertigo and had to stop. Never look down from a sketch place... This snowfield was straight down to the basin floor... I stepped back down to the trail and reanalyzed my route. I noticed a muddy path that was straight up near the snowfield, which I tried crossing first. It had no traction and I started sliding down the hill previously. Upon further analysis I noticed another sketchy path further to the left up some really loose soil. I took that and went around the permanent snow field and entered the Gap.


This is what the trail presently looks like on the way to Indian Bar beyond Pan Handle Gap.


Slightly scared to be the test subject of Sarah's new meal, but it was excellent!


Me in Summerland on the way back to the car.


Summerland on the way out.


One last shot of the view!


Sarah crossing the Frying Pan Creek bridge on the way out.