Hiking With Gadget Girl
It's All About The Adventure!
08-09-22 Wonderland Trail:
Big talk on the trail on Day 7 was the loud thunderclap at 4:30am. Missed it completely as I wear earplugs at night. Alas, Jay's airpad continued to deflate all night long so he was one tired puppy. As we were discussing options, the same backpacker who gave Jay a repair patch yesterday overheard us figuring out what to do and came over and said that today was his last day on the trail and he would swap airpads with Jay and take the leaky pad back to REI when he returned home (in California). Wow, what trail magic! All of us couldn't thank the kind man enough for his generous offer. It basically saved Jay's trip.
Back on the trail we had a short 636 ft climb and then a very long 2,747 ft descent to the first of two suspension bridges on the Wonderland Trail. Saw three garter snakes wiggle their way across the trail. We also saw another glacier, the longest lowest glacier in the continental United States. How cool is that? Ran into two retired women and lo and behold, one was from Parkdale, Oregon and the other was from Corvallis.
The suspension bridge hovered over the Carbon River which is notoriously known to take out bridges on a regular basis. The suspension bridge definitely fixed that issue.
At this point we left the official Wonderland Trail and took the alternate route to Spray Park. Our first camp in the Spray Park area is called Cataract Valley and we climbed 1,200 vertical feet to get there.
This was the only campsite that had back to back toilet facilities. We were quick to do our business!
So looking forward to tomorrow when we climb up into Spray Park proper and see what all the raving about the place is all about.