6.5 miles? / 3400 elevation
What a difference a day makes! We awoke at 7:00 and were in no hurry to get started as we thought we only had 6 or so miles today. I think we were off on mileage and it was actually closer to 9 miles but we still made OK time.
Before leaving camp we walked down to the end of the road leading out of Ipsut Creek Campground to see the damage that caused this campground to be closed. Here's the left over debris from the 2003 floods. You can see part of the bridge in this picture. It's the only part of the bridge still intact:
We left camp and started towards the Carbon River. I was looking forward to hiking through the Carbon River Rainforest and seeing the Carbon Glacier. We reached the river and Rainier was out:
Moments after taking this picture clouds rolled in and Rainier would not be seen again on Day 7.
In the Discovering the Wonders of the Wonderland Trail book this section always confused me. Something about a loop and point A, B, C and D. When Curt read it before the trip we has confused too. I decided when we got to this point we would just follow the signs. We got to the first sign which said the trial was closed and we'd have to take a detour. No problem. We just followed the signs. The Wonderland Trail is so well marked it really would be hard to get lost on it. This was the one and only point on the entire map when we pulled out the map "just to make sure" but we were right on track. We crossed several bridges to get to the other side of the carbon river. The water on this one seemed pretty high, I thought:
We enjoyed our stroll in the lush, verdant forest as we made our way up to the Carbon Glacier. Soon we came to the suspension bridge which we didn't really need to go over as we were already on the side of the river we needed to be on but Emily insisted:
Check out the rain clouds in this picture (more on that later.)
We climbed a bit more and saw this sign:
Followed by these views of the terminus of lowest glacier in the the Lower 48:
The Carbon River being born, coming right out from under the glacier:
How's this for a geology lesson?
While we were there we witnessed a few rock falls (several rocks, small boulders) off the end of the glacier. Just a result of the constant movement of the glacier. Seeing the Carbon Glacier reminded me of the evening we spent on the Big Island in Hawaii. We hiked out to a viewpoint and when the sun went down we could see the fiery lava entering the ocean and creating new land. Seeing the Earth in motion is very inspiring!
As we continued up to Dick Creek Camp we passed a lovely waterfall where we filled up on water: (on second thought I'm not sure this is the waterfall before Dick Creek Camp but I do know it's from Day 7)
As soon as we got into Dick Creek Camp it started to rain. We quickly put on rain gear and pack covers and headed for a little grove of trees just above site 2. We stayed there for an hour while it rained and had lunch. We had really good tree cover there as we didn't get wet at all during lunch.
About halfway through lunch a guy came into camp cursing under his breath... something about how he's from Colorado and in Colorado the trails aren't this steep unless you are climbing a fourteener and he's had it with the steep trails around here. We had a quick chat he told us that he would be camping there that night. We told him we were just finishing lunch and he was welcome to that site. It was raining pretty good at this point and he proceeded to set up his tent in the rain.
Emily had a dehydrated ice cream sandwich for dessert:
We finished lunch and headed out about 20 minutes later and as soon as we got going the rain stopped. There wasn't much rain the rest of the day but the wind started to pick up.
Later in the afternoon we passed through another moraine park full of expansive views (even though it was cloudy), marmots and wildflowers. It was one of the more memorable spots on the trail for me:
We made it to Mystic Lake Camp and decided on site #7 since it was lower and had more tree cover than most of the other sites. We hoped this site would protect us from any wind and rain. It was quite windy all night but never rained. We were so cold from the sweating and the wind just really made it much worse. We quickly got camp set up, put on dry clothes and made dinner in record time. Our only goal was to get in to warm sleeping bags ASAP. By 6:00 we were all in the tent for the night.
Elevation gain for the day was the most of any day the entire trip - 3400 feet. I made it no problem. I felt like I was finally just enjoying the surroundings rather than worrying about whether I could physically do it. I had proven I could do it now the only thing left to do was enjoy every mile we had left.
Gear of the day:
Marmot PreCip Rain Pants
This was splurge purchase but I did wait and use my 2009 REI dividned and a 20% off coupon to get them at a semi-affordable price.
They performed great keeping me dry during a few rainy spells on the trip. They also breathe well. I could definitely see a difference in performance between these and Curt's Kirkland brand rain pants from Costco. For the most part, I've found that in the world of backpacking gear you really do get what you pay for.
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