A long time dream of mine has been to hike the entire Wonderland Trail around Mt Rainier. Being a working guy with a family, it would be hard if next to impossible for me to take a large enough chunk of time to do the whole trail in one go. I don't have the luxury of taking weeks off at a time to go backpacking. Since the trail is billed by the park service as being 93 miles long, I decided the only way I would ever get it done, would be to do it in sections. My idea is to do it in 3 sections taking 3 day weekends to get it all in. So this year I went ahead and applied for the permit to do my first section, Longmire to Mowich Lake.
I was lucky. I got the permit for five people and the section and time of the year that I wanted. Now all I had to do was ask around to see if some of my friends wanted to join me. My friends Ron, Tess and Cheryl and her daughter Steph showed interest so I put them on the list. About a week before the hike, Tess informs me that Ron threw his back out and they would not be able to join us. Cheryl had also previously informed me that Steph was not going to be able to make it either, so at the last minute I had had to scramble to find some folks that wanted to go. Luckily my friend Paul who is a co-worker of Ron's said he would like to join. He was very enthusiastic about it in fact. So on Friday, August 24th after taking the day off specifically to enable a 3 day weekend for myself to hike the 35 some odd miles of this section, Cheryl, Paul and myself started off on the trail at Longmire.
The images below are shown in the order we saw them on this trip. The captions reveal the details much better than I can do in story form. There are a lot of images to load so it may take some time.
Hi Laurie! I’m glad you found me and got to see the report! I sure do envy you girls for being able to do the whole thing in one go. You should all be proud!
You can have any pictures you want. Just let me know which ones and I can send you the larger versions. My email is jaythom1@hotmail.com.
Many of the park ranger cabins have exterior storage cabinets. Most of them have animal cutouts in the cabinet doors. I’ve seen salmon, bobcats, buffalo, etc. Do you remember seeing the cabinet doors and their cutouts at the Golden Lakes Ranger Cabin? Maybe you have a photo? Thanks, -Jim
Hi Jim. Unfortunately I didn’t get any other pictures than what you see here on this page. Now that I know that, I’ll be on the lookout if I ever do the trail again.
Awesome journal and pics! I also got to relive some moments from Longmire to the suspension bridge. 🙂
Thank you Tess. I really missed not having you guys out there. Maybe next year for the other sections…
As always, gorgeous pictures!
Thanks Margaret!
For sure!!
You take the best pictures! I love them!
Thanks Cheryl. I can’t wait for parts 2 and 3!
Hey, Jay!
Remember us? Karen, Katie, & I were there! Love your photos! Any chance we could get a copy of a few for our scrapbooks?
Laurie
Hi Laurie! I’m glad you found me and got to see the report! I sure do envy you girls for being able to do the whole thing in one go. You should all be proud!
You can have any pictures you want. Just let me know which ones and I can send you the larger versions. My email is jaythom1@hotmail.com.
Talk to you later,
Jay
These are really lovely photos.
Many of the park ranger cabins have exterior storage cabinets. Most of them have animal cutouts in the cabinet doors. I’ve seen salmon, bobcats, buffalo, etc. Do you remember seeing the cabinet doors and their cutouts at the Golden Lakes Ranger Cabin? Maybe you have a photo? Thanks, -Jim
Hi Jim. Unfortunately I didn’t get any other pictures than what you see here on this page. Now that I know that, I’ll be on the lookout if I ever do the trail again.
Hi Jay! Thanks for the great blog posts. What time of year was this section of the hike done? Thanks!
Hi Jessica. At the top of the post it says Aug 26th, so we either started or ended right around that time.