Hiking With Gadget Girl
It's All About The Adventure!
08-15-22 Wonderland Trail: Ahhh, a good night's sleep, a nice warmup hike to the mountain toilet, and a great cup of coffee set the stage for the 13th day of hiking with a fabulous start up 1,300 ft to Emerald Ridge. Wow, I must have missed the trip reports on this one. It was fabulous! And we counted 10 goats that we could see on the other side of the canyon. Everything was green, green, green, waterfalls, and of course incredible Mt Rainier. Wow!
A long rock-filled 1,407 ft downhill landed us at the second suspension bridge of the trip, 150 feet high and 200 feet long. What fun to cross over high above the rushing water. More uphill to a beautiful huge rock for lunch and then the wildflower display cranked right back up.
Just as we were entering the Indian Henry Hunting Grounds section, there was a side trail leading to Mirror Lake 7/10's of a mile off the Wonderland Trail (WT). What the heck, let's go see it! Amazing! Incredible! Spectacular! Can I use the word fabulous again? The wildflowers were over the top. Mirror Lake may be small but it's mighty with the reflection of Mt Rainier in it. It made one want to sit down and contemplate that your whole life has led up to this very moment. This must be Heaven.
Sigh, retracing our steps we rejoined the WT and passed by the famous patrol cabin in Indian Henry Hunting Grounds which was swarmed by backpackers.
Talk about swarming, the flies were really bad in this area. Started the downhill to our next camp at Devils Dream and found a nice flat site for three tents. Bugs were also very bad here so totally appreciated the headnets and tents.