Wonderland Trail Day 6: Golden Lakes to Klapatche Park

Aug 14
Mileage: 7.8 miles
Golden Lakes: 5130 ft
Klapatche Park: 5515 ft

The human body is amazing as it can endure demanding physical activity day after day and come out of in good condition.  However, what throws a wrench into the grand plan is the mental state along with its by-product, emotion.  These 2 things just screw everything up and get in the way.  Physically I felt fine, mentally and emotionally I had hit my breaking point.  I was miserable, tired of the rain, gray skies, humping up and down with no views and the rangers telling me today was the day the sun was coming out!

I woke up once again to rain and it just weighed on me.  Everything I had was pretty much soaked.  Sure, I had pack cover and had things in plastic bags, but everything got wet anyway!  My tent footprint was wet and very muddy which transferred to my tent floor.  Amazingly enough, I did manage to keep my sleeping bag dry throughout this whole ordeal!  I had it in a waterproof compression sack and in the tent I spread out everything plastic around the mattress pad to prevent it from getting wet.  I didn't sleep well during this time as I kept waking up to make sure I hadn't moved during the night onto the wet tent floor.

So, what does one do when they wake up to day 5 of rain?  Aside from wishing my friend Kris would come pick me up in his helicopter, I picked up the sat-phone and called Jim as I knew he would understand.  Leaving a message for him, he called back and told him I wanted to vent; I was miserable, it had been raining 5 out of the 6 days I've been out here and that I was done with this.  I had to keep moving forward, but that I was done and coming out early.  Then the phone died!  Great, but finally the rain stopped and I heard the sites on either side of me emerge and start to break down there tents and they were gone.

I got dressed and grabbed the water bladder, bottle and filter and headed down to the lake.  I was starving and needed to eat and in a hurry!  Grabbed the food bag off the pole and headed back to camp where it started to rain again.  I got some water going and ate breakfast and some extra stuff as well.  Drank some tea and water and felt much better.  It stopped raining and the fog came in.  As I was packing up, I kept asking for some sun.  What do know, it actually came out!  Wow, and it really felt good!  I ran over to site #4 to grab a picture of the view from there.  It's beautiful and I was bummed out I didn't get that site, but oh well.

 

View from site #4

I was still famished and boiled some more water and ate another meal, while the sun was out allowing it to dry out my stuff for a little bit.  Again I had another late start, but sitting in the sun eating a meal felt good, so I didn't worry too much.  I walked out to the ranger hut and Paul was leaving and seemed startled anyone was still here.  He asked me if I beat the storm in and told him what happened and he just shook his head.  I asked about Klapatche and he said it was uphill and unlike yesterday the trail was steep and not nice.  He also mentioned to get water before I got to camp and not to drink out of the lake.  Klapatche Lake is a scum lake and he said there was a stream right after the river crossing to get water there or I would have to hike 2 miles to get water!  He then left for Indian Henry's and had a long day of like 18 miles.  I left right behind him at 1035 after taking a few pictures. 

 

Ranger hut at Golden Lakes

The trail out of camp was up and down and the rest of  Sunset Park was beautiful.  I ran into some hikers and we talked about the weather, the misery and the ability to keep going.  North Puyallup (pronounce Pew-oll-up) River Camp was 4.9 miles away and I set a goal of arriving there at 1300-1330.  Met a guy who was moving and had left from Longmire and was going to Mowich Lake.  What?!  He then said he was doing the trail in 3 day and I can't imagine doing that!  Met a two other groups of 2 guys, one of which said Klapatche was freezing cold last night, so they came down to North Puyallup for the night and they were done and bailing off the trail.  The other group told me there was a stream to the south of the lake they used for water, not to hump it up the hill. All of the groups said that people have bailed off the trail because of the weather.  I made to the North Puyullup camp at 1310, so made good time. Crossed the river over a nice wood bridge and stopped at the group site for a snack.  I still debated going out via a trail to the Westside Road, but kept going.

 

Sunset Park

 

Flowers at Sunset Park

 

Sunset Park

 

Trail on way to N. Puyallup River

 

Bridge across N. Puyallup River

 

N. Puyallup River

After a break, started uphill for Klapatche and found the stream that the ranger had mentioned and listened to my gut and dropped the pack to fill up the bladder and my water bottle.  Filling up the bladder meant unpacking the pack, but I needed the water so it wasn't a big deal.  After getting water and repacking, my pack was heavy once again as water weighs around 8 lbs/gal.  The uphill trail here was tough and steep and nothing like the gradual nice uphill of yesterday as the ranger had said.  It was nothing like Ipsut Pass though!
I passed this tree that had these huge rocks still embedded in its root system and one had fallen down to the trail.  Pretty cool to see that!

Those rocks aren't small

Met some people coming down with one couple telling me that the ranger was at Klapatche eating lunch and that was at 1400, so Paul had hiked 7.8 miles in like 3 hours.  Wow, guess when you have a very light pack you can move!  The wife had her face all cut up and she told me she fell down some steep part of the trail coming out of Indian Henry's and fell on her face and even lost a tooth!  I'm thinking I would have been done at that point, but here she was, hiking on.  The trail continued on with up and more up and then the switchbacks got longer.  I hit a flat spot thinking I was at the top until I looked at the map, nope, more up and steeper, then finally the switchbacks got shorter and I came out into Aurora Park and the fog.

 

Uphill to Klapatche

Aurora Park in the fog

 

Klapatche Lake in the fog

I finally made it to camp and took site #3 on a recommend from one of the guys I passed on the trail.  I was the only one in camp and I think I got to camp around 1630.  The fog was thick and it was cold at 5900 ft.  I got the tent and camp set up and ate some more snacks.  I had dinner limiting myself to one meal here although I easily could have eaten two of them as I had to water ration until tomorrow.  After dinner, I looked around for the creek the guys talked about, but never did find it, so glad I humped it up the hill.  I also called Jim and Jen and worked out a plan to come out early not really sure on how it would all work out.  I wanted to get to Longmire or keep heading south on the trail so that the hike on the road wouldn't be that long.  I had 3 choice at this point:

1. Bypass South Puyullup River Camp and go on to Devil's Dream which would put me in Longmire a day early.
2. Hike the trail out here at Klapatche Park onto the Westside Road and meet Jen at the gate.
3. Hike to South Puyullup River Camp and take the trail out to the road and meet Jen at the gate.
   

I told them to call the National Park Inn to see if they could get me another night added on to my current reservation and I would call them in the morning.  I needed to call the Ranger Station in the morning to see if I could stay at Devil's.

I went to sleep with a light rain and the question of how things would pan out in the morning.  I was the only on in camp again and I don't like being the only one in camp.