 |
Part of Squaw Lake near Devils Dream camp |
This was a hard hike to go on. Not because of physical ability. I had internal conflicts about leaving the Chehalis River valley to head up the trail, but thats another story for another time. The other internal conflict; the Sonics were in the NBA Finals against the 72-win Michael Jordan led Chicago Bulls and I was going to miss a couple of those games. Both of those were big to me but the thought of being on the trail prevailed. Its hard to resist the Cascades in the summer. However, I was not able to shake the thoughts about the first conflict the whole trip, so I was not able to completely remove myself from the rest of the world, which is one of the main reasons to take such trips.
Eric, his girlfriend (at the time) Susan and I (I was not Eric's girlfriend - just to clarify that somewhat odd sentence) parked at the Longmire Visitor Center, grabbed a few things at the general store and headed up the road to the trailhead, which was at 2700 feet. The first 1.5 miles were constant switchbacks up the south side of Rampart Ridge that intersected the Van Trump trail, gaining 1100 feet. This was the first hike of the year. Starting off like that was a wake up call that I was out of shape. Regardless, we descended down to Kautz creek and took a quick snack and photo break at 2.5 miles without anyone dying.
 |
A view of the Tatoosh Range heading up Rampart Ridge |
It was a short hike in (5 miles) to camp so we were half way there already. The last 2.5 miles saw us gaining 1300 feet after crossing Pyramid creek at first. The Kautz creek drainage provided the only real view of Mt. Rainier the whole trip (minus our visit to Paradise to shower). It was a somewhat overcast day but it was good to see the mountain out and gave me the confirmation that my decision to go was turning out to be somewhat of a decent decision. I've always been attracted to that mountain and it's beauty will never cease to cause a skip in my heartbeat the first time seeing her after a while. If you do a lot of hikes in MRNP then you'll realize that your $10 entrance fee is giving you excellent trail conditions. The trail up to Devils Dream was well maintained trail. I would like to thank all the out of staters that contribute to the cause as they curse the entrance fee. Nothin's free these days.
After taking our time to get to the plateau that was in the midst of Satulick, Iron and Ararat Mountains (forming a triangle - similar to the triangle offense that Phil Jackson was using to try and beat the Sonics at the same time... weeeeeiiiiird isn't it?), we found some dry campsites on the south side of the plateau. The snow hadn't melted all the way so anything further up the trail would be in the snow. Camping in the snow wasn't something we felt like doing. We were there to just have a fun weekend and weren't stretching our limits by any means.
Our camp wasn't far from a decent sized waterfall that we explored. At the bottom of the fall there was a beautiful gorge that partly accessible. I love exploring and could resist the gorge's temptation to take a peek. Not only that, it was neat to see the waterfall from the bottom as well as the top.
 |
 |
Left: From the middle of the waterfalls height. Right: From the bottom of the waterfall, just above the gorge. |
|
We spent the rest of our time just wandering and goofing off around and exploring the vicinity, enjoying the privacy (which was totally unexpected being in the National Park). There was one other party in the area but left the day after we arrived. Aside from Eric having to have some medical treatment by Susan after being injured while using the "restroom" (not sure what he did and I didn't really want to know), we were left to think up humor on our own... which was never too hard with Eric and I. Susan was always nice enough to laugh at our stupid jokes. Maybe thats why Eric eventually married her.
 |
Susan posing on the bridge |
 |
A view of Iron Mountain with a tip of Rainier in the background |
 |
Indian Henry's Hunting Ground trail looking Northeast towards Mt. Rainier. (Click image above to download the Google Earth KMZ. For a little help click here.) |