Day 8: July 20 - White River to Indian Bar
We had an early wake up call the next day around 7:30 a.m., when our fellow hikers from Sunrise came down to meet us - Dana and Valerie, a couple from Georgia, who had done the first half of the trail in Summer 05; and "Jersey," the solo guy from New Jersey who we met on our second day on the trail.
At this point, we were on the Northeast corner of the park. The goal for the day was to do about 13 miles, including going over the tallest pass on the trail, Panhandle Gap, which was buried under snow, at 6,750 feet. For the first seven days of the trip, we were coming across hikers who were turned away from this part because there was no discernable trail across the snow (the boot tracks would melt daily) and they didn't have proper maps or route-finding skills. Because of these stories, and uncertain conditions ahead, we decided to trek through together. Dana and Randy had pretty good route-finding skills and maps, plus Randy had his GPS, which had the entire day's trail plotted out.
The trek to Summerland
Our first goal was Summerland, one of the prettiest spots in the park because of the valleys and meadows of wildflowers. The climb, to me anyway, kicked our butts, as I was lagging behind and was just physically, mentally and calorically exhausted. It had also gotten a bit warmer than we were used to. We hit Summerland, which had a very nice shelter, and we crashed, ate, pulled out the maps, massaged feet, fixed blisters and took a nice hour-long break. We could see the trail to pass from the trail shelter (below, left). I felt extremely comfortable knowing there was a group of us going, pursuing this adventure together, and there was a good camaraderie amongst us too.
View of Rainier from the trail to Panhandle Gap
Surprisingly, the approach to the pass wasn't too difficult. There were red flags marking the trail. Randy led the way, kicking steps in the snow for us. The pass was easy to spot and there were two older gentlemen ahead of us as well (Dave and Not-Dave, we never got the second guy's name). Jersey took great pictures of us trekking along the snowfield.
Dana and Valerie taking care with sunscreen
When we got to the pass, we could see Mt. Adams again, as well as a herd of about 50 or so mountain goats that was making its way down a snowfield about 1 mile in front of us (left). We could also see how close we were to Mt. Rainier and her foothills (right).
We found the tricky part was getting off the ridge we were on. We started to turned too early and realized this wasn't right. Randy hiked down to the bottom of the valley we were in only to find a steep drop-off while Dana climbed back to the top of the ridge with Dave to figure out where exactly to go. We finally continued along the ridge until we found the point where you turn left and sure enough, the snow ends and there's the trail. The descent was a bit rough on the feet and knees because it was nothing but stairs, but the wild flowers were lovely.
Randy checking the compass and map; Randy and Dana consulting our next moves
Finally! Trail! And the wall of rock and snow to our left as we descended.
My favorite part of the day was the approach to that evening's campsite, Indian Bar. We came out of the forest and into an open valley, with a large river at the bottom. We decided to stay in the camp shelter, a cobblestone three-walled shelter (below, left) with an incredible view before us. Words and pictures cannot describe the view from the shelter. Even the toilet had a great view - as in, there were no walls around you to block it.
Our cobblestone shelter to the left, the Ohanapecosh River to the right
Making sure the bears didn't get our food; Jersey relaxing with some of our Johnny Walker Black
Journal: We took over the shelter rather than hit the individual sites and enjoyed the evening and the company. Shared food/gear/hiking stories/experiences, advice, pictures, carved names into the shelter, hung our food bags from the stones on the side of the shelter; watched Dave and "non-Dave" take a bath totally nekkid in the snow-melt stream, then waved to them as they got out. Non-Dave gave us a thumbs up and made a sweeping motion with his hands to indicate our day's reward - the amazing view that we had. Snow and rock walls to the west, hills of evergreen in front of us and awesome glacier and snow-melt streams in front of us. I guess it really doesn't get any better than this.
The neat thing about the terrain here is the fact that you can tell the snow just melted. All the dead grass from the snow is still brown and soggy and hasn't turned green yet for the season. Tomorrow we'll all trek to Maple Creek or Nickel Creek (10 miles) then Saturday, head out to Longmire and call the trail done. I'm kind of looking forward to getting the weight off my back and esp. my feet, but I'm not ready to give up the adventure. I can say that with confidence, 8 days later.