Day 2 Information
Dick Creek to Sunrise Camp - 12 Miles
Friday, September 6th 2002

It is Friday morning. The temperature is about 45 degrees. It’s now 9:45 a.m. and I’m feeling pretty lazy, pretty tired. I think I got eleven or twelve hours of sleep. Hopefully that was enough sleep for today. The sun is out. As much as the sky I can see, there are no clouds, except for one tiny one far away. I’m eating my breakfast right now, which consists of a pop tart and maybe something else depending on what I want. I’m going to try to hurry and get out of here within the next half hour to forty five minutes.


Carbon Glacier Valley taken from my tent at Dick Creek

It is now 11:30 a.m. This is day two of my Wonderland Trail trip around Mt. Rainier. I just left Dick Creek, only about 3 hours later than I wanted to. This first part of the trail is very steep, then once again as soon I get over this hill it should be flat for a little while and then up hill again to Skyscraper Pass. The temperature claims to be about 73.8 degrees.

The time now is about 1:20. I’ve just reached the top of what is sometimes known as “killer hill”, it wasn’t that hard though.


A view from the top of "Killer Hill" of the Carbon Glacier and the tree and flower slopes of lower Curtis Ridge - (unofficially known as Moraine Park)

The altitude is about 6200 feet and it looks like I came from about 6500 feet, although I’m not sure how correct my watch is right now, but that is what it is claiming. The temperature claims to be about 63 degrees. I just came up Killer Hill, which wasn’t too bad. It was steep but coming down this downhill now fells very, very nice, not bad at all. Unfortunately, I have a lot more uphill to be doing pretty soon, and I haven’t reached Mystic Lake yet. I’m supposed to be within about a half a mile. Hopefully, I will be coming to that real soon. The mountain right now is totally covered by clouds. The skies are mostly cloudy with a few spots of blue sky showing. As for me, I’m a little tired but doing alright. I met an old park ranger back at Dick Creek as I was leaving. He was a ranger here in the eighty’s he said. He was hiking with a buddy who was probably a ranger too. They were headed toward Curtis Ridge. They said it had ok views. They were just on a day hike.

Ok, Temperature is about 65 degrees, and current time is about 2:20. I stopped and talked with an older man, probably 65 to 70 years old. His name was Al Caler. He has a web site that I will be checking out which is www.ImageMakerAC.com He will be putting his pictures up sometime in October of 2002 when he gets a chance. He uses traditional 35 mm photography while hiking sometimes.

He had done a lot of hiking. He lives in Northern California and goes hiking there a lot and also in Texas. It started to rain for a little bit back at Mystic Lake which is where Al Caler will be camping. It was sprinkling then it started to hail, which I thought was great because I would rather have hail than rain. Then it started to rain. He has a short way to hike and I have a very long way to hike. I should see him again somewhere around Paradise or Longmire in about 7 days or so. Today was his first day. He dropped his food off like me. He drove up to Longmire then Sunrise. He camped at White River. Apparently you don’t have to have a camping permit to camp there. You can just drive in. I guess there are enough campsites for everybody, usually. It could be considered when making plans for another trip to camp there then drive to Sunrise or Paradise.

Right now I’m hiking along a small river. The rain has stopped now that I’m wearing a jacket and have my tarp over my pack. My shins are hurting. It seems like my shin splints are coming back and they don’t feel good, I don’t like this.





This is an interesting area, all the trees are dead and there are lots of rocks and there is almost nothing green except for a few baby trees on the ground. Everything is so dry here even though I’m right next to the river. Very strange, it must have been flooded by the river, or maybe a forest fire. The elevation here is 5440 feet.


A Panorama of the Winthrop Glacier

It is now 3:35 p.m. I have just reached Winthrop Glacier. It is about 4960 feet. I passed about 11 people doing the Northern Loop then another two a few seconds ago. They were Swedish I think, I don’t know. The clouds are still present. The sun is shining through in a few spots. I’m in the woods. I have one heck of a steep climb to do over the next two hours or however long it takes me. I stopped just before I crossed the river and had some granola along with some beef jerky a Milky Way and some water and SHOOT, I forgot to get water. I guess this will be a tuff hike. Maybe there will be some more water along the way hopefully.


A Panorama of Skyscraper Pass

It is 5:50 pm. I’m just coming down from Skyscraper Pass. It is very cold and the wind is blowing. The mountain is totally covered in clouds. I can’t see it at all, just the lower part. The altimeter claims to be about 7020 feet, which I think is pretty close. As I’m coming around the bend now, I’m seeing a very familiar site, the Burroughs Mountain. Now I see the Wonderland Trail ahead of me.


The Wonderland Trail below Burroughs Mountain

Bummer, it looks like I have to hike down and then back up a ways, not too far though. It’s a little windy on this side. It is very nice here. It’s cold, it is probably about 50 degrees plus the wind is blowing. So it’s probably even colder. It’s mostly rocks through here, especially Skyscraper Pass which was totally covered in rocks, lots of little rocks. The people I talked to at Granite Creek River claimed it would take me about 2 hours to get to the top of Skyscraper Pass and they were correct. From here it looks like I’ve got about 45 minutes and I should be at Sunrise. Twenty minutes to Frozen Lake then another 20 - 30 minutes from there.

It is 8:00 p.m. I just passed Sunrise, and I have about 1.2 miles to Sunrise Camp. Unfortunately my plan didn’t work. My plan was to go to Sunrise, pick up my food then go to Sunrise Camp and I would have all of my food to eat and enjoy. But unfortunately the ranger station was closed and all the rangers were watching a movie upstairs. So I knocked on the other cabin, and the one ranger that was their said he normally doesn’t open the station after it closes. But he said that he didn’t mind going over and letting me get my food. I told him that it wasn’t a big deal and I would just come back tomorrow, even though it was only a 200 or so yard walk to the station.

It is almost completely dark and I’m not hungry, but I know I will be by the time I get camp set up. Once I get there I will start boiling the water. The temperature is cold. Elevation is 6240. The time is 8:05 pm. Barometer is 24.45. My watch claims the temperature is about 60, but it is more like 45, since my watch has been in my sleeve. Tomorrow morning I will as usual, wake up very late, I plan on going on a day hike just because the weather looked mostly cloudy. So I will be prepared to go to Sunrise from Sunrise Camp, but I will most likely go to Mt. Fremont and do some reading or something.


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