Planning and Itinerary
Finally! For those that don’t know, the 93-mile Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier has an extremely competitive permit lottery. About 10,000 people apply each year for only about 600 permits (there are also about 300 permits held for walk-ups). We applied for a permit for the last six years and struck out, but this was finally our year!
On the Wonderland you must reserve designated campsites. Beyond just winning the permit lottery, we got extra lucky by getting one of the first available lottery times, meaning we could choose any dates and campsites we wanted. That was especially important because we had a large group of eight and we needed to choose from the even more limited group campsites.
Based on the experience levels in our group, we decided to hike the trail in 8 days. We didn’t know much about the trail going in, so we somewhat arbitrarily decided to hike clockwise from Longmire and resupply at Sunrise. We chose campsites that were pretty evenly spaced and ended up with the following itinerary:
The Hike
Section 1 — Longmire to Mowich Lake
- Start: Longmire
- End: South Puyallup River
- Distance: 12.3
- Elevation gain: 4,700 feet
- Start: South Puyallup River
- End: Golden Lakes
- Distance: 11.8
- Elevation gain: 4,100 feet
- Start: Golden Lakes
- End: Mowich Lake
- Distance: 10.2
- Elevation gain: 2,600 feet
Our hike started with a rainy morning at the Nisqually Lodge, where we stayed the night before. Given our large group of 8, we split into two groups—which we dubbed Alpha Squad and Beta Squad—to get to the trailhead, with Mike acting as shuttle driver. As Alpha Squad was driving into the park, I got breakfast with the rest of Beta Squad at the surprisingly good Ukrainian restaurant next door.
Once we had all been shuttled in, we picked up our permit from Longmire and began our hike. Fortunately the rain had stopped and the cool weather was nice, as we immediately climbed a couple thousand feet. The first half of the day was a walk in the woods with no views. Beta Squad caught up to Alpha Squad at the Devils Dream campsite where we stopped for lunch, and then we continued on as a group.
Later in the day we got above treeline for a bit and the clouds had parted enough to give us our first views of Rainier. Towards the end of the day we had a really nice ridge walk with great views. The sun even came out briefly. We also our first wildlife sightings on the trail—a herd of mountain goats in the distance, some marmots darting around along the trail, and the biggest slug I’ve ever seen (unfortunately no photo evidence).
We camped at the South Puyallup River campsite on night 1. Our site was situated near the roaring river, which was extra nice because it was loud enough to drown out Siyang’s snoring. After a hot dinner and some struggling with the bear pole (pro tip: if you put everyone’s food into one bag it’ll be far too heavy to hoist up) we settled in for a good night’s sleep.
We woke up soaking wet. It rained overnight. So much for the beautiful sunny summers of the Pacific Northwest…
Our second day was similar to the first—up through the woods, a short stretch above treeline with great views, down through the woods, cross a river, repeat. A lot of the trail seems to be that way. I was expecting more of the trail to be higher up on ridges or above treeline, to be honest. We passed loads of huckleberry bushes in this section which was a nice bonus.
At lunch we had a long discussion on “which five liquids would you choose to be able to dispense from your fingers?” Your mind goes to strange places on a through hike.
We (well, some of us) had an exciting wildlife encounter. Mike and Kristen saw a momma bear and her cub in the woods right next to the trail. The rest of us heard something rustling in the woods but never saw the bear.
We camped in a nice site at Golden Lakes. The cloudy weather left something to be desired, but otherwise it was another nice camp. Mike and Kristen were nice enough to share some of their Backpacker’s Pantry dark chocolate cheesecake with the rest of us for dessert. It was more pudding than cheesecake, but it hit the spot nonetheless.
It rained overnight and everything was soaked in the morning. Second day in a row. Great.
Day 3 was a short mileage day that wasn’t very noteworthy. My highlight was seeing a bear shortly after lunch. It meandered through the woods and then walked right on the trail for a while, never paying me any attention. Otherwise, it was a cloudy and rainy day with no views. At least we made good time, with everyone reaching camp by 5pm leaving us plenty of daylight. Well, if the clouds had allowed for any daylight.
Actually, it did clear up a bit after we set up camp. Mowich Lake is one of the car access points so it isn’t a wilderness camp, but it’s small and remote enough that it doesn’t get a ton of traffic. It’s not the nicest place to camp if you can avoid it, but it’s perfectly fine. The lake itself was really nice, especially after the sun poked through the clouds.
Unfortunately, Mike and Kristen decided to leave the trail here. Kristen’s knee had bothered her the past few days, so it seemed wise to get off the trail when given the opportunity rather than risk further injury. Mike and Kristen found someone to hitch a ride with to Sunrise (our resupply point where our second car was parked) the next morning.
Section 2 — Mowich Lake to White River
- Start: Mowich Lake
- End: Mystic Camp
- Distance: 13.5
- Elevation gain: 5,300 feet
- Start: Mystic Camp
- End: White River
- Distance: 12.2
- Elevation gain: 3,000 feet
Finally a dry, sunny morning! And the timing was great, because after Mowich Lake we had the option to take the Spray Park alternate, a higher and more scenic alternative to this section of the traditional Wonderland Trail. Given the good weather we decided to go for the Spray Park alternate.
A few miles in we saw two more bears. Lots of bears on the trail this time of year! Again, they weren’t the least bit bothered by us. A little while later we reached one of our best yet viewpoints of Rainier.
And then Ben rolled his ankle, as he is wont to do. Fortunately, our injury-prone crew had enough ankle braces to go around. I lent him my brace (the best ankle brace) and after a short rest Ben powered on. Ben is no stranger to powering through injuries—his accolades include completing a 4-day hike in the White Mountains after severely spraining an ankle on day 1, and hiking the Grand Canyon on a then-undiagnosed torn ACL.
Then we entered the Spray Park section, which lived up to the hype. We had great views of Rainier and the surrounding peaks. Definitely the highlight of the trail up to this point, and we were really fortunate that our luck turned around here with the weather.
We briefly flirted with disaster as Mike got out front and nearly lost the trail at one point. Luckily we spotted him off in the distance. Sean went ran out to retrieve him and bagged a quick summit (Lee Peak maybe?) while he was there.
We ate lunch after coming down from Spray Park. I need to stop packing so much tuna for backpacking lunches. The only way I could get it down, as disgusting as it sounds, was by smothering it in peanut butter. I felt terrible for the next couple hours.
After lunch we settled into the reality that today would be our longest and most challenging day of the trip. I don’t remember much about the climb to Mystic Camp except that it seemed to go on forever. It wasn’t terribly steep but it was steadily uphill. Once we reached Mystic Lake, we learned that the campsite is not in fact at the lake, but rather 0.2 steep miles down past the lake. And the group site is another tenth of a mile after that! It felt like a slap in the face—or rather, a slap in our very tired legs—at the end of the day. At least the campsite was nice.
We started early the next day, eager to reach our resupply point as soon as possible. It started as a nice morning but then some misty rain rolled in. Just our luck. We got a few nice views despite the rain.
Foot traffic increased dramatically as we approached Sunrise. It’s a popular day hiking spot, and for good reason. There were lots of trail intersections and there would be great views on a clear day.
We reached Sunrise a little after noon and rendezvoused with Mike and Kristen, who had successfully made it back. They were even kind enough to bring a box of wine to add to our resupply package (only the finest). They had actually been dropped off at White River, which meant they had to lug the wine up a steep 3-mile climb to Sunrise. Thanks guys!
After resupplying and arguing about whether we had enough food for the rest of the trip, we spent a couple hours enjoying the amenities. We got (expensive) hot dogs, ice cream sandwiches, and other snacks at the general store and lounged around outside. The weather changed half a dozen times while we were there—cold rain, hot sun, brisk wind, and so on. We chatted with a few people who were interested in hearing about our hike, including a nice woman from the Seattle area who had summited Rainier about 30 years ago.
The climb down to White River wasn’t so bad (it would be tiring to climb up, though). White River is another car campground, which comes with pros and cons. The biggest con of this particular campground was the bee infestation that had taken over the group wilderness permit site. It actually worked in our favor though, as the site was relocated to one of the normal car campsites. It wasn’t as secluded as a wilderness campsite, but we had plenty of space, a picnic table, and we even got to make a campfire.
Section 3 — White River to Longmire
- Start: White River
- End: Indian Bar
- Distance: 11.7
- Elevation gain: 3,500 feet
- Start: Indian Bar
- End: Maple Creek
- Distance: 10.4
- Elevation gain: 2,000 feet
- Start: Maple Creek
- End: Longmire
- Distance: 10.9
- Elevation gain: 2,600 feet
Day 6 was probably our nicest day on the trail. We started with a long climb through a nice forest that started to open up just before reaching Summerland. From there we were on ridges above treeline for miles with great views in all directions. There were lots of day hikers in the area and it was easy to see why—it’s probably one of the most scenic areas in the park that’s reasonably accessible on a day hike.
We only stopped there for lunch, but Summerland would be a great place to camp. Especially the group site, which has a small shelter with a great view. It was also the first time we got any cell service so I took advantage of that to let the outside world know I was still alive.
We spent the next few hours hiking over a couple beautiful passes, and we were fortunate that this ended up being one of our good weather days. The views were great in all directions.
The descent towards Indian Bar took us through some meadows filled with wildflowers. I’d heard about how nice the wildflowers are on the Wonderland Trail, and this must be one of the spots that people talk about. Someone going the other direction told us there were baby mountain goats in the area, but unfortunately we never saw them.
Just before we reached camp at Indian Bar Sean got stung by a bee. He handled it with grace. We also saw yet another bear at Indian Bar walking right on the trail, meandering through the tent sites.
Before our hike I had read that Indian Bar was one of the best camps on the trail, and I can now confirm that it is, especially if you get the group site. It’s set at the bottom of a beautiful valley with good views and a nice river, and the group site has a stone shelter, much like Summerland. We were very excited when we realized we’d get to use the shelter.
There are pros and cons to having a shelter. Pros: we didn’t have to set up tents and we had a nice place to sit and eat dinner. Cons: mice. Just before going to bed, we noticed a bunch of mice scurrying around. It didn’t really bother me, but some of us were more unsettled. We briefly discussed setting up tents to avoid the mice but ultimately decided to take our chances on the shelter bunks. Mike was attacked (his words) by a mouse in the middle of the night, but the rest of us escaped unscathed, as far as we know. Siyang’s snoring likely protected him.
We awoke the next morning to a thick fog hovering over the valley and we went on our way. It turned into another really nice day and we walked along a beautiful ridge with great views of Mount Adams in the distance. This section was the last big highlight of the trail.
We plunged back into the forest after leaving the ridge and eventually reached Maple Creek, our last and probably least noteworthy campsite of the trip. The site was fine, but it was the smallest of all the group sites we’d had (luckily we were only 5 at this point—it would have been a tight fit with our original group of 8). It was also buggy—actually, it was the only spot on the trail where I used my bug net.
We ate all of our remaining dinner. It also just so happened to be my birthday, so we celebrated with a birthday “cake” made from Cosmic Brownies and peanut butter. Delicious.
Our last day on the trail was short and largely uninspiring. Motivated by being so close to the finish line, we got our earliest start yet, hitting the trail just after 7. It wasn’t one of the nicer sections of the trail—lots of walking next to, sometimes directly on, a road. There were a couple nice viewpoints, including Reflection Lake which offers a picturesque view of Rainier.
Siyang and I had the dumb fun idea to race the last mile of the trail. We ran to the end and he ended up beating my by mere seconds (he claims it was more than that). It’s a small miracle that I didn’t sprain an ankle.
And then we were done! And immediately onto our next adventure… packrafting the Deschutes River!
Additional notes
- Gear list
- I was pretty happy with our itinerary. Your starting point and direction don’t really matter too much. My main regret is stacking our difficult days at the beginning of the itinerary. Some of our group struggled on the first few days, and we easily could have done more miles at the end when our legs were stronger.
- We were a little unlucky with the amount of rain we got. At least half of our days had at least some rain, and I think early August is usually drier than that. At least we didn’t get any heavy storms.
- We didn’t see as many people as I expected (the rainy weather could have something to do with that). The exceptions were near Sunrise and Summerland.
- On a related note, the camps are smaller than I expected with only a handful of sites each. That explains why the trail isn’t crowded and permits are so competitive.
- We saw a fair number of people hiking/running the trail in 3 days, which you can do without a wilderness permit by camping at the car access points (Longmire, Mowich Lake, White River). That would be over 30 miles and almost 10k elevation gain per day—sounds tough! Most of those people were supported by someone driving between access points.
- For maybe the first time ever, we carried exactly the right amount of food (although I was eating pretty much nothing but nuts on the last day).
- Photography note: I used my 50mm prime lens (AKA a “nifty fifty”) for most of my photos. I usually use my wide angle lens on hiking trips, so it was fun to experiment with a different focal length.
- Another photography note: I carried the wide angle lens anyway, as well as a tripod for essentially no reason (about 3.5 lbs total). I had hoped to take some night sky photos but the cloudy weather ruined that plan. Oh well.
Nice trip report! Sounds like it was a fun time despite the less than optimal weather.