Day 9 Information
Paradise River Camp - Devils Dream - 10.5 Miles
Friday, September 13th 2002

OK it is 9:55 right now. I’m just leaving Paradise River Camp.


My campsite at Paradise River Camp

I’ve crossed the river about 3 times, although I’m not going back and fourth. For some reason the river seems to be split three different ways.


Not confusing at all....



Mt. Rainier from Tahoma Creek (I think)

They’ve been doing work on the river crossings the bridges that they are making. They are taking out all of the old ones and putting in new ones. It’s starting to look pretty good. This morning I woke up at about 7. I didn’t really get out of bed until 8. I started eating and cleaned up all my stuff, packed up every thing. It took a while because I had a ton of stuff from yesterday. I put my tent away and now I’m on my way. Elevation here is about 4050 ft. The Barometer reading is slightly off. Hopefully I will be able to fix it at Longmire. It’s reading at 30.05. The temperature reads at about 70 but feels like 75 and it’s a little cold. And my pack is so heavy, WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. I’m defiantly dumping some stuff off once I get to Longmire. It’s about ten pounds heaver than I would like it to be. Luckily this is all downhill. Not necessarily good, at least I’m not hiking uphill though. But it is just destroying my knees. It’s already halfway destroyed from yesterday. I feel a lot better after taking a shower yesterday. I feel so much cleaner now. Almost like I did the first day. I was the last one out of camp today. I never met any of them because I didn’t even see them. There was one guy in a hammock, another in campsite 1 from Ohio State. There were three smaller tents, seemed like a lot of tents for a small site like that one. The bugs are still bad, really annoying. I have a few bites now on my leg, and I don’t know where else. They don’t feel too good. I’m just getting really annoyed by these stupid bugs.

Once I get to Longmire I will dump of my extra food and try to get rid of some other stuff because my pack is way heavy.



It is 3:30 right now, I’m leaving Longmire. About 3 hours later than I wanted to. Once I got here I wrote a postcard to the Whites, the O’Connor family, the Fiscus family, my family, Brandon and Debbie along with Allan and Donna McMillan. I got those in the mail; they should reach their destinations before I get home. It took a while to get a hold of my dad to get the address to Brandon & Debbie’s house. Then I bought some bread and some milk and I had my PBJ. Although I had to buy some chocolate milk because the normal was disgusting. I talked with Al Caler (imagemakerac.com) for a while. We ended up meeting exactly where I thought we would.

Afterwards I spoke with Al Caler, I spoke with the rangers. They do store fuel actually. At Longmire also. You can’t mail it. But if you can get it there, they will store it. They have a fireproof box that they will store it in, you just have to ask. I left two of my bottles of fuel there. Because I know I won’t be needing it the next few days. As long as it doesn’t get too cold the next few days. I think two bottles should be plenty. And, I don’t really plan on picking them up, but I might have my sister Rachelle pick them up, if she ends up coming to see me at Gobblers Knob. Although the road is closed so she will have to hike 6 miles to the top of Gobblers Knob. Which is a pretty good hike. I would drive around and get it but it is such a long drive from Mowich Lake, it’s just not worth it.

I have 5.5 miles to go to Devils Dream. It’s 3:30 p.m. I shouldn’t get there much later than 6, but there is a lot of up and down so who knows how long it will actually take. I keep hoping to see a bear, but at some what of a distance would be nice.

When I got my chocolate milk, I wanted some ice, but the store only sold ice in big backs. So I went to the restaurant next door and asked for some ice which the man gladly gave me, I used it to keep my chocolate milk nice and cold along with my PBJ, it was really good.

I also talked about the no markers across the Panhandle Gap area. He said they just don’t because the constant snow. I understood. I also asked him why it changes to kilometer near paradise. He said a while ago when they started making the signs, they made them all in both miles and kilometers, back when they were pushing for that change. So the ones that still had the kilometers on them just haven’t been changed back yet.

I’ll get there by 6:30 or 7. Some steep spots. I changed my pass, while talking to the ranger. I now stay 2 nights at Golden Lakes. I’m supposes to camp at campsite 5 there I think, it is supposed to be one of the better sites.

It is 5:20 p.m. now. I have about another 2.25 miles to go. I left Longmire at 3:30 and it took me an hour to reach the top of the Ramparts. It was hot and I was tired. Took me another 20 minutes or so to get down to the Kautz Creek, the first crossing. I pumped some water. Just to store some for the hike, then continued on. I went uphill again. I took a picture. On my way up to the Ramparts I was getting pretty tired and it was hot and sunny. I looked up the trail and no one was there. Then all the sudden I hear this really loud noise. At first I thought it was a bear or some large animal coming at me. But then I looked back up and saw that it was just a bird flying right at me, I think I scared him first. The bird scared me so much I almost fell over.

My inside right ankle is really hurting. Probably from running down from Panorama Point. Probably from running sideways. Hopefully that will feel better in the next day or so. I don’t want to hike any more miles hiking the way it is now. I was in a hurry to get my shower and was it nice but now I regret running down.

From here to Mowich Lake there are no more communications weather by mail or road. Just 35 miles until Mowich Lake.

The elevation here is about 4000 ft. Once I get to Pyramid Peak, it is a 1000 feet going up over 2 miles. It should be fairly soon I think I hear the river, yeah. Once I cross that it’s 2 miles to camp so hopefully I should be there by 6:30 or 7.

OK it is 8pm on Friday the 13th and I’m at Devils Dream Camp. I got here at about 6:50 p.m. or so. I set up my tent and made mashed potatoes for dinner. I was too lazy to make spaghetti. I also had some sugar wafers and a couple of candy bars, 3 musketeers. And I had a drink all 20 ounces of strawberry banana. And a few pieces of beef jerky. That should hold me off until tomorrow.

There doesn’t seem to be much water around here or water close by. As I was hiking by Pyramid Peak, some lady told me there wasn’t much water. I saw her as I was taking a picture, she said she was up climbing Pyramid Peak this Morning. She wasn’t too excided about Devils Dream Camp. She didn’t camp there. She really didn’t have anything nice to say about it at all.

Now both of my ankles are hurting, right below my ankle. IT DOES NOT FEEL GOOD. I should have never of ran down that trail. That is the worst part. My shoulders feel better I think. I think I made my pack feel worse because of the way I adjusted the lower strap, where the backpack touches the lower back. There is a strap you can tighten that directly pulls on the shoulder pads and shoulder blade pad and close toward the back and was compressing my shoulders but it seems better now. It feels as if the bone itself was bruised. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow. Hopefully I will be able to wake up in the morning. Tomorrow I have a very short hike in mileage, but it will probably take about the same time to finish. It starts by going up about 200 – 300 ft then down for several hundred probably 1700 then right back up 1700 feet where I will hike along Emerald Ridge then back down 1700 or so to the South Puyallup River. I would really like to get there early. I will really try to wake up at 6 or 7 so I can be the first out of here. That way I can get the campsite I want for both nights. Plus, just to get there and go to bed, relax and sleep. I will have a day off there then I hike another day to the Golden Lakes then I have two nights there then one more day of hiking to Mowich Lake which is the end of the trip. It’s close, only three more hiking days but 7 more days total. I guess it will be 6 days if I decide to stay at Mowich Lake.


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