In the previous two columns of All Things Mount Rainier, I’ve shared a number of “good news” projects on and around the mountain that bring hope for the future. Engineered logjams and setback levees mitigate flooding and erosion. The installation of native plants and the park’s Meadow Rovers help restore the subalpine meadows. Incarcerated people raise native plants that restore ecosystems. After a 100-year absence, fishers have returned to Mount Rainier’s forests!
Today, let’s lace up our hiking shoes, grab a daypack, and check out the 93-mile Wonderland Trail that encircles the mountain.
For the uninitiated, the Wonderland Trail consistently makes the “Ten Greatest, Most Awesome, Scenic, Challenging, Incredible Hikes in North America” lists in outdoor magazines and on websites. Most folks take a week or two to complete the trip, though it’s become a target of trail runners, those superhuman specimens composed of nothing more than ligament and lung. Runners broke the record twice last summer for running the entire trail, each coming in at under 19 hours.
Before more than 12,000 backpackers and hundreds of thousands of day hikers began using the Wonderland Trail each year, it played a critical role in resource protection during the park’s early days. Built by rangers between 1907 and 1911, the trail helped them patrol the nascent national park to protect it from poachers, vandals, and fire.
Congressional funding in 1915 helped complete a circuit that ran longer than today’s version. The Mountaineers, a local outdoor club formed in 1906, wasted no time in pressing its boot prints upon the newly forged footpath. In the irrepressible style of the day, packhorses carried provisions to feed the 90-plus hikers. The first group to circumambulate the mountain, they took three weeks to complete their trek.
In 1920, Superintendent Roger Toll penned this grand description: “There is a trail that encircles the mountain. It is a trail that leads through primeval forest, close to the mighty glaciers, past waterfalls and dashing torrents, up over ridges and down into canyons; it leads through a veritable wonderland of beauty and grandeur.”
A century later, Toll’s words ring as true as ever. Weather permitting, it repeatedly offers changing, breathtaking views as hikers tramp around the imposing monolith. As the 1915 Mountaineers trip reporter wrote that the mountain’s changing faces caused him to “gasp and gaze in silent awe and wonder,” we are dumbstruck by its constantly changing splendor.
I like to think of the Wonderland Trail as the Pacific Northwest’s largest three-dimensional, live-action game. Players move in either direction along the trail in short or long increments of their own choosing. Some are “destination hikers” intent on moving quickly through the landscape, a type one might call “Homo Directus.” Others, “journey hikers” who drink in every viewpoint and side trail and take two weeks or more to complete it comprise another breed, the “Meanderthals.”
Like many hikers, I’m a mix of the two types. We move around the mountain, invisibly tethered to each other, tested by terrain, weather, pack weights, and fitness levels. Even a trip shortened by foul weather, a bevy of blisters, or a wrenched knee leaves each hiker with a profound connection to the mountain and a grounding in the restorative power of living outdoors, even if for a short time. In this game, everyone wins.
If you’re up for through-hiking the entire circuit or section hiking it over time, your success hinges on advance planning and preparation. Considering the trail’s overall elevation gain of 22,000 feet (Alaska’s Denali checks in at 20,310), training is essential. I like training hikes with plenty of elevation gain and loss, and carrying some weight, too.
Another key issue is pack weight. The old axiom that “You can always tell a fool by the size of their pack” rings true on the Wonderland. Mike Clellan’s Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips is a treasure trove of weight-saving ideas. Weighing all of my gear made a huge difference, helping me trim pack weight down to a tidy 23 pounds (all food and water included) on my last WT hike.
The linchpin for a Wonderland Trail trip, whether a through hike or section hike, is a wilderness permit. Required for all overnight stays in the backcountry, permits are available online, but are legendarily difficult to secure. My secret weapon is to take advantage of the park policy that holds 30 percent of permits for walk-up reservations, for hikes beginning that day or the next. I show up an hour or more before a ranger station opens, set up a camp chair outside its front door, and wait. That puts me at or near the front of the line at opening time, practically guaranteeing a permit. First time Wonderlanders should check out Tami Asars’ Hiking the Wonderland Trail.
If you’re not a sleep-on-the-ground type but the Wonderland Trail still calls your name, here are a couple of fabulous day hikes to give you a flavorful taste of the Wonderland experience. Departing from Sunrise, you can catch the trail near Shadow Lake or at Frozen Lake. Continue west to Skyscraper Pass for lunch, unsurpassed views, and your turnaround point. Energetic hikers will enjoy a side trip up Skyscraper Mountain. Roundtrip, the hike is 6.8 miles, and with an elevation gain of a mere 1,700 feet, it’s a great family hike or for those just getting started in the high country.
If you crave a long day on the trail, the Wonderland Trail’s Grand Champion of day hikes requires a bit of driving and a car drop-off, but traverses some of the park’s most incredible scenery. Start super-early and park a car at Box Canyon on the Stevens Canyon Road, your hike’s endpoint. Drive to the Fryingpan Creek trailhead on the White River road and hike to Summerland, up and over Panhandle Gap, down to Indian Bar, and out to Box Canyon. It’s about 17 miles with ups and downs galore, but it’s a day you’ll always treasure. When I hiked Fryingpan to Box Canyon last summer with our oldest son Dimitri, we came across the recently returned wolverine and its two kits—a super-lucky, once-in-a-lifetime sighting!
Whether you section hike, day hike or through-hike the Wonderland Trail, there’s plenty of trail to wander and expand your sense of wonder. And if hiking isn’t your game, a drive to Sunrise on a bluebird summer day is sure to lift your spirits.
In next month’s column, the last of All Things Mount Rainier, I’ll share more ways to explore and steward the mountain. In the meantime, keep your boots dry and your spirits high.
Jeff Antonelis-Lapp is an educator, naturalist, and writer living in Enumclaw since 1982. Tahoma and Its People, his natural history of Mount Rainier National Park, was published this spring by Washington State University Press. Copies are available at https://jeffantonelis-lapp.com/. Jeff would love to hear from you about Mount Rainier. Send your questions and favorite stories to rstill@courierherald.com, and subscribe to his blog, too.
