Wonderland Day 0

Dennis was able to retrieve my pictures!! Yay! 

 

Day 0, Nancy, Ingrid, and I flew to Seattle, rented a car, and drove to White River on the north eastern edge of Mt Rainier National Park.  We had several itineraries to present to the Ranger since this year permits are walk-up only.  Ranger Carol shot down the first several so we put ourselves at her mercy and said we will do whatever you have available.  She is studiously checking the system below for viable options.

 

 

She figured out a 12 day itinerary for us going clockwise and we were overjoyed!  High fives and jumping all around!  This is what we ended up with:

 

Mowich Lake to Ipsut 5.4 miles

Ipsut to Cataract Valley 4.6 miles

Cataract to Dick Creek 12.4 miles including a detour into Spray Park

Dick Creek to Sunrise 12.5 miles

Sunrise to Summerland 10.3 miles

Summerland to Indian Bar 4.4 miles

Indian Bar to Maple Creek 9.8 miles

Maple Creek to Paradise  6.5 miles

Paradise to Devil's Dream 9.3 miles

Devil's Dream to North Puyallup 14 miles

North Puyallup to Golden Lakes 5 miles

Golden Lakes to Mowich Lake 10 miles

 

The Wonderland Trail makes you stay in designated areas so that's why the tight control on permits.  It was a refreshing change from the John Muir Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, truth be told.

 

Now that we had permit in hand, we could kind of figure out if we could cache any food.  We decided to leave 4 days worth of food at White River since we would have to walk back through there anyway.

 

We exploded our packs in the ranger parking lot and went to work.  It was a haphazard free for all.  But we got our food into the cache bucket, labeled it correctly, and left it with the Ranger.  Then off we went to drive back around to Mowich lake (north western part of park), our starting point.  The rental car would be left at the Mowich parking lot for 12 days.  What a waste of money, right? Thankfully, we got a really good deal through Costco.

 

 

 

 

We made it to Mowich around 5pm and set up camp.  I met a solo lady named Marjorie who had fallen and cut herself and wasn't sure yet if she needed to get stiches.  I wonder what she ended up doing. 

 

I had also contacted Erin Saver AKA Wired, because I knew she was going to be on the Wonderland and being a long time blog follower of hers, I wanted to meet her! I have a history of recognizing people on trail whose blogs I follow and scare them with my exuberance so I was hoping to give Wired a head's up that I'd be looking for her.  Lots of good info on her blog: http://walkingwithwired.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Since I am doing a Diabetes Fundraiser for awareness in conjunction with this hike for the American Diabetes Association, I'll be talking about my diabetes on the trial.  I don't like it but I will :-)

 

2 hour post-prandial evening sugar level was 93.  Good.

 

 

 

 

Hunkered down to sleep, excited to start walking!!