Backpacking the Wonderland Trail

Day 0

Get to White River Campground. Get organized and get ready for our first day tomorrow. Mental note to come back to this campground just to do a regular camping trip. It's so pretty, and it would have been awesome to catch the sunrise. We were lazy though and tired from all the driving yesterday to get here, so we just had a chill morning to get ready for the day!

Day 1

12.3 miles. 8 hours. White River Campground to Mystic Camp. The weather was super bipolar: windy, rainy, sunny, hot, more wind. My IT band was flaring up majorly, but there are for sure less beautiful places to be in pain. Once we got to camp, we just hung out at Mystic Lake, skinny dipped to clean up and ice our bodies. Best part of the day: NO ALTITUDE SICKNESS! Diamox works! Starting two days before, I took 1 in the morning and 1 in the evening, and boom! Money.

Day 2

13.1 miles. 8.5 hours. Mystic Camp to Mowich. The weather was bipolar again (but what do you expect? We are going around Mt. Rainier!). The trail was either straight up or straight down. All. Day. Long. It had no chill. Hiking up through Spray Park was incredible. Very steep with sections of snow, and even with the crazy fog, it was still absolutely gorgeous! Would love to come back and check this out when you can take in the whole view without the fog. But Mt. Rainier did poke her head out a little bit for us, and the flowers were next level beautiful.

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Note from camp: the guy who gave us some pasta recommended I come back and mountain bike in Bellingham! *Don't forget to tell Graham*

Day 3

15.9 miles. 8.5 hours. Mowich to North Puyallup camp. The trail itself was more manageable today -- less steep ups and down, and more rolling hills. The weather was beautiful just about all day! Sunny but not too hot. The views at Puyallup Glacier were next level. I meditated for a while at the bridge, watching the glacier cascade down as waterfalls, just lost in the beauty of it all. It was absolutely stunning, and I had this overwhelming feeling of, "this is why we are here."

Day 4

16 miles. 9 hours. North Pulyallup camp to Pyramid Creek. Tough miles today. The views at the Emerald Ridge were so insanely beautiful, so that broke up the intense effort and physically taxing day a bit! St. Andrews lake was also super cool!

Day 5

13 miles. 8 hours. Pyramid Creek to Snow Lake. BIG break at Longmire to pick up our resupply (met Timmy and Morgan here), skinny dipping in Snow Lake, it was a beauty day! By far my favorite campsite ever. It was just stunning. I would LOVE to come back and do a backpacking trip just to hang out at this lake. And on the way, trail angels gifted us Rainier beer. Life is good.

Day 6

6.5 hours. Snow Lake to Olallie Creek. The mission was to take it easy and get to Olallie Creek in one piece. Great success! It was super hot, and I definitely got heat rash, but we made it. We also, met up with Morgan and Timmy again at Olallie Creek and had a blast hanging out, drinking a beer, and just talking about life.

Day 7

17 miles. 9 hours. It was definitely a tough day, but I felt strong, and in great spirits all day. It was warm, but nice breezes at the higher elevations which was super nice. There was a lot of snow and mixed mileage signs. My highlight from this day was definitely climbing out of Indian bar. It was so empowering to look back and go, "holy shit, I just climbed from all the way down there." It was incredible. And, stayed the night at White River Campground again before driving back to California in the morning!

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It was a beauty day for a beauty day!