Mileage: 10.7 miles
Klapatche Park: 5515 ft
Devil's Dream: 5060 ft
I woke up at the crack of dawn again and was actually in a good mood wanting to be positive about moving forward a day on the trail. Also, it was not raining, but a heavy misty fog and it was cold. I got dressed and had breakfast of cold cereal. I had an energy bar in my pocket night before I went to sleep, so stuck in my pot hoping the mice wouldn't get to it, but they did, not leaving too big a mess. Hope those dates gave them stomach problems. :)
Got my pot cleaned up and heated up some water and ate another meal as I was still hungry. This is becoming normal for me eating two meals at breakfast and dinner. I wanted to be by the lake on the phone at 0730 talking with the rangers to see if I could go on to Devil's Dream today and before they gave out permits to walk-ins. I called the White River Ranger Station, however, they didn't have the computers up yet, so I had to wait until they had it up and running. An expensive 15 minutes later, I got confirmation to go on to on to Devil's Dream, so I was really happy and knew I had a long day again. I called Jen to tell her I would meet them at Longmire on Sunday and if they couldn't get me a room for Sunday night, I would sleep in one of their cars. I went back to camp to pack up and left camp at 0855 and took a few pictures of Klapatche Lake.
Klapatche Lake
Headed uphill to St Andrews Lake and the park was gorgeous with the fog and the morning dew. My plan was to arrive at S. Puyallup River Camp in 3 hours since it was 4 miles away and have lunch, so wanted to move as fast I could today. I hit the ridge line and a miracle happened, yup after 7 days on trail, there was the mountain and the sun came out! I grabbed my camera and took some pictures watching the fog roll up from the valley below and then no more mountain. Well, that made my day and put a spring in my step. The mountain is beautiful up close like that.
WLT uphill thru Klapatche Park
Klapatche Park
Hey look, sun and Mt Rainier
Just that quick, the fog rolls in
I arrived at St Andrews Lake and the sun came back out and the fog was rolling about and got some good pictures there. I dropped my pack and had a snack for a few minutes and then moved on. The trail heading up and up to the ridge line. Also, it dawned on me that I was half way done with the WLT and on the west side heading to the southwest, cool! I met a few thru-hikers along the way from the Midwest so we chatted a bit and I had one guy from Ohio get my picture. I met another group of hikers and traded camp info and the woman like my GPS so we talked about it for a bit.
St Andrews Lake with Rainier
Me in St Andrews Park
After that it was downhill the rest of the way to the S. Puyallup River Camp. I met this bother-sister on the trail as they were humping up and they had these humongous packs! OMG! I had to wonder what they were carrying that was so big. I told them about the rain and how I yelled at the sky at Golden Lakes and they laughed about that. I made camp in 3 hours after crossing the river, right on target so I was happy about that. Small victories work wonders sometimes. I pulled into the group site and got some water and wolfed down 2 meals. Here lately, I'm just hungry all the time and really eating heaps of food. I wanted to lighten up my pack going up to the Emerald Ridge as it was going to be a nasty uphill for a while. I walked to the camp toilet and forgot that this camp has the lava rock formations, so ran back to get my camera and took a few pictures. Pretty cool rock formations! I think they call this Devil's Organ Pipes or something like that.
S. Puyallup River
Lava rock formations
I left camp at 1330 and headed uphill for the ridge and stopped along the way to take off the rain gear. It was not raining, just foggy and I was hot climbing the trail. I stopped and talked with several people comparing notes about the trail, weather, rain and camps. I met on couple from Wisconsin and like me were disappointed in the trip so far with a lot of hiking and no views. They had been on the trail for 6-7 days too! I asked them if they were enjoying the mountain view and they asked where the mountain was and I pointed behind them. The Tahoma Glacier should have been in our face, but all we saw was fog.
View of Tahoma Glacier from Emerald Ridge
The trail along the Emerald Ridge was thin, very steep and dangerous. I had to keep telling myself if I fell to fall right. A fall right would hurt but a fall left was fatal as in 5000 ft to the river. It looked like a major portion of the trail here had given way to a landslide, so it wasn't a nice part of the WLT that is for sure. This also jogged my memory of the woman I met who fell and cut up her face as I guessed this is the part she fell on.
Steep trail on Emerald Ridge
Trail on Emerald Ridge
Finally got up to the ridge looking for Marmots but didn't see any and up to this point hadn't seen any in 7 days. That is not common in the sub-alpine areas as they are usually everywhere. The trail started downhill and turned to rock, which really slows me down. About this time a group came from behind and scared the crap out of me. I know I startled them as well and they were the first people who passed me from behind in 7 days, not counting the ranger. They were moving fast, so I just got out of the way. Ah, to be young again and have the ability to move fast without the knees hurting. Still heading downhill to the Tahoma River met a large group and spoke with them for a bit. There were several women and one guy who had his wife with him, so I teased him a bit about being the only man of the group.
The trail heading downhill now got bushy, rocky and muddy so again took my time walking through it all. I finally came another suspension bridge this one higher and longer than the Carbon River one. I walked across it and had taken pictures before crossing and it was cool to see how the river flowed from up above. After making it across the river the trail sign said I still had 2.9 miles to camp. Again, I set another goal of 2 hours to make it 3 miles and was hoping to get to camp by 1900. I stopped for a break, took off jacket that I had put on coming down the ridge and hit the trail. The 1.8 miles to Indian Henry's was all uphill and very steep. It wore me out and at this point just wanted to get to camp and out of my boots! About an hour later I arrived at Indian Henry's Hunting Ground and it was very beautiful so took some pictures.
Suspension bridge over Tahoma River
Tahoma River
Indian Henry's Hunting Ground
Ranger Patrol Hut
Indian Henry's
The trail sign posted Devil's Dream about 1.5 miles away. I had a snack on the move and saw the ranger from the hut there come out and start heading my way on the trail. He caught me asking me where I was going and he would check my permit there and took off. He did say the rest of the way was down hill and it was. I arrived at camp being the last one in at 1915 and got site #2 which is what I wanted per a recommend from a hiker. Got to the site, set up the tent and unpacked and headed to get water. Water access here is a bit tricky as the area is dark, damp and very slick with mud. I wasn't too happy about having to hike up and down a muddy slope to get water, but got water and back to camp. This camp was dark, damp and the mosquitoes were out in full force, which is the first time they have been a problem on this trip. I made dinner and got camp bedded down by 0845 and it was dark outside by time I crawled in the tent.
I was tired as all get out after a very long strenuous day, so tried to stretch out and relax and then fell asleep knowing tonight was my last night in a wet tent, at least for a few days.
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