This year the week between Christmas and New Years will be spent in
Southern California. When I started shopping for plane tickets for this
trip months ago it quickly became apparent that plane tickets and rental
car were going to cost a fortune. When I compared the cost of flying to driving
it suddenly made seemed to make sense to just drive. So our family has decided to boycott the obscenely high cost of plane tickets and instead do our holiday travel by car.
However this morning, while listening to the radio, I was reminded that tomorrow, the day we depart, is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. Tomorrow the family and I will be in the car for 11+ hours and there will only be around 9 hours between sunrise and sunset, and this is just the first of 3 days of driving.
We may be spending quite a few hours during this drip in the dark, but I think it will still be a fun family adventure...
As the actual date of to do the Wonderland Trail in 3 day my original group of a dozen or so people became just three, then two: my friends Tom S and Tom M (this was going to be confusing). The week before the trip my friend Ben decided to join us "off the couch". We were now four, with a fifth friend Dave providing support.
Day 0 - Getting to the Trail Head
The trip started off with us all meeting early afternoon on Friday September 9th, and making our way to the to Mowich Lake on the secluded North end of Mount Rainier. After several discussions over the phone with park officials, I had a very real concern about our ability to find a campsite at Mowich Lake which doesn’t take reservations. Because of this I kind of rushed the group to get to the campsite, passing up on the traditional pre-trip big meal for quick sandwiches to go at Subway. When we arrived at Mowich there were in fact quite a few people camping there, but it was by no means full. However, as we set up the tent, it didn’t take long to realize that mosquitos were going to be a real problem, so we ended up eating our sandwhiches in the truck and having pre-trip celebratory Rainier Beer tallboys.
Day 1 - Mowich Lake to White River Campground
sunrise on Mt. Rainier from Spray Park
I didn’t sleep well in the small tent 4 man that all four of us were in (assume any tent size is at least 1/2 a person smaller than described). I was awake well before the first alarm went off at 4:30 AM. Then with the alarm, everyone got up pretty quick and we quietly went to work putting our gear away, taking down the tent, and moving everything we wouldn’t be taking with us to the truck.
For me breakfast was a hard boiled egg and a banana. I wasn’t hungry, but I knew I needed to get some starting calories in me. After we all choked down our breakfast we headed out at 5:25 AM (about 2 hours before the sun would come up).
The night before we had made the decision that rather than head over the quicker and easier route of Ipsut pass, we would go up and over Spray Park. About a mile longer, and much more vertical, but much more scenic, and besides, no one wanted to start off right away with over 5 miles of downhill running in the dark.
crossing the snow at Spray Park
Things were bad for me from the start, as my headlamps batteries were dieing, and I could barely see the trail in the dark woods. Not being able to see I was constantly tripping over roots and trying to keep up with the others who were trying to keep it at a fast hike or slow jog. The others headlamps eventually disappearing in the darkness up ahead. Luckily Tom S stopped to check up on me. He tried to get me some new batteries in the dark, but between fumbling with the batteries and being feasted on by mosquitoes, we gave up and Tom S ended up following right behind me with his much more adequate headlamp.
A few miles of hiking uphill and we reached Spray Park as the first light of morning was making it so that headlamps were no longer needed. At that point we picked the pace up to a slow jog. Up around Spray Park we found quite a bit of snow, but the travel on it was quite easy as it was very consolidated and sun cupped. Crossing the snow that was side lit by the sunrise was pretty cool. Ben really picked up the pace the moment he hit the snow, he was in his element even if he wasn’t wearing skis.
crossing the Carbon River
As we cleared the high point, and started heading down to the Carbon River we were all pretty much moving at a good jogging pace. When we reached the Carbon River we stopped for our first real break of the day. I ate my second and last banana and second and last hard boiled egg. Nothing more for me that day other than energy food. As we headed out we encountered the first of two large foot suspension bridge, this being the one over the Carbon River.. It hangs quite some distance over the Carbon River and ominously warns hikers to only cross one at a time. The crossing provides a bit of a ride, bouncing and rocking.
We headed on up again, this time towards Mystic Lake, climbing along side the Carbon Glacier. An ominous sign told of the dangers of the glacier as we heard giant boulders previously frozen in the glacier breaking off of and falling over a hundred feet to the river below. Once past the the Carbon Glacier the trail weaved up amongst fields of very fragrant wild flowers filled with the constant sound of bees.
From Mystic Lake we headed down past the Winthrop Glacier, over the Winthrop River, then up to a high ridge near Skyscraper Mountain. I was a bit behind, and by the time I reached the high ridge the others were already relaxing a bit and taking a break. I was running low on water so I decided that rather than stopping, I would head on down the trail and take my break where ever I found water.
enjoying a beer at White River at the end of day one
I headed down towards a very unfrozen Frozen Lake to refilled my water at a small creek, then shortly after met Dave who had hiked in from White River to meet us. The others soon caught up, we all gathered in some of the sparse shade to say our hellos, and then took off jogging. Dave and I held back a bit and instead hiked on down towards Sunrise Camp then down to White River where the car that Dave had driven down that morning was located. That night he took over cooking and made us awesome carne asada steak quesadillas. After dinner and a Rainier Beer, it was early to bed, for another early start the next day.
On July 27, 2010 around 8:45 AM, I completed a longtime goal of summiting Mount Rainier. Prior to that trip I had set far more grandiose plans for the "next trip"; things like climbing Denali or Aconcagua. However, the trip up Rainier was a big wake-up for me. Climbing Rainier was much more difficult than I had imagined it would be. So I decided to scale down plans for my "next trip", but I wasn't sure what would make a great adventure. It was not until late December of 2010 that I really started formulating an ideal of the "next trip", and my inspiration came from a post I found on the blog "Learning To Do". The post was all about running light and fast around the 93 mile Wonderland Trail that circumnavigates Mount Rainier. (Here is a PDF map of the trail and a PDF trail elevation profile from the National Park Service's web site).
I began talking to and emailing friends about my idea. I read the stories of others who had completed the Wonderland Trail in one, two or three days, and emailed some of them asking for advice. The stories definitely did not make it sound easy, but 93
miles split into 3 days, at an average pace of 3mph, that’s just an
average of 11 hours a day. It seemed very reasonable. With a light pack I
should easily be able to average 3mph. As time went on my enthusiasm for the trip grew and friends began to sign on to the the idea of joining me on this trip (although other, wiser, friends referred to the trip as tbe "Death March").
I sent a seemingly endless flood of emails to friends who would be interested in joining me on this, but as the time for a possible trip approached my wiser friends began to realize the true scope of what I had proposed. The unusually high snow levels on Mount Rainier in 2011 moved our trip back from the traditional time frame of late July/early August until the snow levels could make the trail passable. So the emails continued, and the trip got built up bigger and bigger.
My friend John suggested that everyone who plans on joining me on this trip should have to prove themselves by hiking or trail running 30 miles in one day. I took John's suggestion to heart and signed up for the Grand Ridge 50K in August. During the 50K trail run, I pretty easily managed 5mph over 31 miles with over 5K’ of elevation gain, so 3mph over that same distance during 3 days should be easy, right? Wrong! As I would later discover the Wonderland Trail is a very different path than a nice single track 50K trail run like Grand Ridge. Some of the climbs are far steeper, some of the descents are also steep traveling across loose rocks along a ledge, and crossing rivers (even though all the actual water is crossed on bridges) is not easy...river rocks do not lend themselves to fast travel. Then of course there is the issue of being more worn out each consecutive day, but of our group of four, two of us managed to finish it with a total time on the trail of just over 40 hours over a period of 3 days, that works out to be around 2-1/3 mph (but it sure felt like we were moving faster than that).
I work with web sites and software, I play with photography, and I try to get out of the city when I can. However all of this plays second seat to my family.
