Wonderland Loop Day 1/5: Box Canyon → Devil's Dream
I knew just about the absolute minimum about this trail going into it to do it safely (total mileage/vert, sections with no water, weather). Showed up to the White River ranger station at 6am and worked with the ranger to put together a workable itinterary for a 3-4 night loop based on walk-up camp site openings. It took a few different tries but we were eventually able to piece an itinerary together. So I drove another 45 minutes to the Box Canyon trailhead and took off counter clockwise from there. Very misty/foggy all day, but it finished raining for the day just before I started, which was nice. Every other day of the hike was blue skies and I think if I was going to pick a day to be cloudy, this would have been the one anyways. This is also the section of trail that parallels the road and highly-accessible areas the most, so it was nice to get most of the crowds on the first day so that the whole middle part of the trip felt pretty remote. Several good waterfalls. Made camp at Devil's Dream campground, where true to name I did have a terrible nightmare. This was the first time I've gone backpacking in an embarrassingly long time but all the knowledge was still up there. I did accidentally pack a few things though, like I carefully selected my 5 stakes of choice from the myriad in my stake bag only to somehow put all of my stakes into the backpack instead.
Wonderland Loop Day 2/5: Devil's Dream → Golden Lakes
The views started coming day two and never let up. The new vest style pack I was testing out on this trip turned out to be a little ambitious for my current base weight - it was really great with about 2 or maybe 3 days of food, but was tough on the shoulders with this much food on the second day. Will definitely use it on shorter trips. Had lunch at a great lake. Crossed a surprisingly scary suspension bridge that I wasn't expecting. That's probably the longest, most suspension-y suspension bridge I've been on and white I like to think I'm not afraid of heights, it was pretty disconcerting (especially noting one of the planks was missing!). Super fun though and maybe one of the highlights of the trip haha. Did a couple extra bonus miles when I took a wrong turn.
Wonderland Loop Day 3/5: Golden Lakes → Cataract Valley
Decided to take the Spray Park alternate route, which hews closer to the mountain and higher into the alpine. Barely any snow left at all so it was easy going. Before that though, I detoured slightly to have lunch at Lake Mowich. Then I took a another small detour to check out Spray Falls, which I didn't even know about but was easily a highlight of the trip, a gorgeous waterfall you can get right up into. Lots of flowers in Spray Park at treeline. While my legs were appropriately tired at the end of every day, I got into camp with at least 4 hours of daylight left every day which was a bit boring because I forgot to bring a book. I think four days would have been a more natural timeline for me to do this trip in, and that's what I would do if I were to do it again. Unless I was trying to run it, which I saw two guys doing today and was pretty jealous.
Wonderland Loop Day 4/5: Cataract Valley → Sunrise Camp
Had another cool, smaller suspension bridge in the morning - much more solid than the first. Had planned on lunching at Mystic Lake but the bugs and ants were there in force so I skipped over it. I got super lucky and happened to glance in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time to see a bear poking it's head out over a log maybe four or five hundred feet off in the distance, just watching me. Despite the incredible heat of the day and a lack of water, I dropped my pack and popped up to the summit of Skyscraper peak quickly for some good views. 7k feet or something like that I think? Didn't realize it was that high. Met a nice older Irish couple who used to live in Durango. It started getting crowded as I got closer to Sunrise, after being very very sparse on the rest of the trail. At some point during the day my permit got snagged off my pass I guess, so I did an extra few miles into the Sunrise visitor center to have them print me off another one because I didn't want to get woken up by a ranger checking permits in the middle of the night. Always tough to go from solitude to surrounded by hundreds of families. Side note, the New Balance Hierro v8 were really good shoes for this trip - super duper cushy. I think they would probably make good thru-hike shoes I'm just not sure about their long-term durability.
Wonderland Loop Day 5/5: Sunrise → Box Canyon
I had so (too) much downtime at camp every day that I had been sleeping in every morning as long as I wanted to, but this morning I woke up before sunrise to catch it hit Rainier in the morning. It's the name of the camp after all. Passed through Summerland in the morning which was real pretty. A bit of unfortunate timing had me in the forested valley the entire cool morning, only to pop out in the alpine with no tree cover right as maybe the hottest day of the summer in Washington bore down in full solar force. Really regretted not bringing a sun shirt and got totally irradiated. Wetted my neck gaiter and hat in every single stream I passed. The views on this day were maybe the best of the entire trip. Had lunch and took a wonderful dip in a tarn just before Panhandle Gap. The alpine terrain feels like home in a way that must come from spending so much time in Colorado. Big ole marmot walked up to me. The views of the glacier valleys and their waterfalls were awesome. Last views of Rainier faded away and I could see Mt. Adams off in the distance for the last miles. On the last descent of the loop I suddenly remembered that I can run and jogged it in. I kind of miss running on backpacking trips now. I had so (too) much downtime at camp every day that I had been sleeping in every morning as long as I wanted to, but this morning I woke up before sunrise to catch it hit Rainier in the morning. It's the name of the camp after all. Passed through Summerland in the morning which was real pretty. A bit of unfortunate timing had me in the forested valley the entire cool morning, only to pop out in the alpine with no tree cover right as maybe the hottest day of the summer in Washington bore down in full solar force. Really regretted not bringing a sun shirt and got totally irradiated. Wetted my neck gaiter and hat in every single stream I passed. The views on this day were maybe the best of the entire trip. Had lunch and took a wonderful dip in a tarn just before Panhandle Gap. The alpine terrain feels like home in a way that must come from spending so much time in Colorado. Big ole marmot walked up to me. The views of the glacier valleys and their waterfalls were awesome. Last views of Rainier faded away and I could see Mt. Adams off in the distance for the last miles. On the last descent of the loop I suddenly remembered that I can run and jogged it in. I kind of miss running on backpacking trips now. My car was still there at the Box Canyon trailhead and I threw my pack in and headed home. Nice trip and cool trail! Highlights: the suspension bridge, Spray Falls, the bear sighting, Skyscraper Peak, the tarn dip, and of course the views