Back in May, Jim won a reservation spot in the Mt Rainier backcountry permit lottery. Jim has always wanted to do the Northern Loop and campsites were available. I booked our reservation and then all was forgot until a week ago.
Last Friday, Yoko, Baram, Jim, and I parked in the Sunrise lot in Mt Rainier National Park. The weather forecast called for haze from the nearby forest fires. Luckily, we seemed to be above the smoke.
From the Sunrise Trailhead, we headed up the Sourdough Trail. At the Freemont Lookout Trailhead, we turned onto the Wonderland Trail.
During our first break, Andrew caught up with us. After another 10 minutes of hiking, we came to the Northern Loop Trail junction.
The trail starts off following the Wonderland Trail then after 2 days, it loops off to the North. We planned 5 days for the entire trip back to this point.
The Northern Loop Trail circumnavigates three peaks: Skyscraper Mountain, Old Desolate, and Sluiskin Mountain. Our plan was to climb all three. Each peak got slightly harder than the one before.
Around lunchtime, we came to the climber’s path that led up Skyscraper Mountain. We dropped packs and within minutes were enjoying the views from the summit.
We could see the forest fire smoke obstructed most views to the south and east. Luckily, most things we were interested in were north and west.
We had a great view of Sluiskin Mountain. For everyone but Jim, this was the first time we had seen our final climbing goal. What an impressive looking peak!
When we rejoined our packs, Andrew headed off to climb Burroughs Mountain. This was his first trip to Mt Rainier National Park and he wanted to take it all in. The rest of us headed down the Wonderland / Northern Loop Trail towards the White River. Around every corner, we were treated to more views of Sluiskin Mountain.
By the time we reached the crossing of the White River, it was raging. We were glad to have a makeshift bridge to cross on. I wonder how many of these bridges need to be replaced every year because the previous bridge was washed away during the spring run-off.
When we reached Mystic Camp, we had time to setup our tents and then hike up to Mystic Lake before the last sun rays went over the horizon. Old Desolate stood high above the lake.
Andrew arrived camp just before dark. We had grossly underestimated how far Burroughs Mountain was from Skyscraper Mountain. Exhausted as he was, Andrew said it was worth it to look directly down on the Winthrop Glacier.
In the morning, we all headed up to Mystic Lake. Even though we had lots of wind in camp, the lake was completely still.
We followed the Wonderland / Northern Loop Trail around to Mystic Pass. Along the way, we enjoyed views back toward Skyscraper Mountain.
The northside of Mt Rainier is a view most of us never see. There seemed to be a cloud of dust above the glacier at all times. Or maybe it was smoke? Definitely no snow on this face. Just steep, scary rock.
We dropped down from Mystic Pass to a grassy basin where we dropped packs, hung our food, and assembled summit packs. The route up Old Desolate involved climbing a dry creek drainage for about an hour. At the top of the drainage, we popped out into a high basin. This would be beautiful camping early season.
We stayed out of the scree as long as possible by climbing to the ridge at the far end of the basin. At the ridge crest, we were treated to a fabulous view of Sluiskin Mountain.
It was a quick stroll to the summit. We could see two plumes of smoke in the distance. Hopefully, tomorrow wasn’t going to be smoke filled.
For now, we were going to enjoy our amazing view and good company.
After 45 minutes on the summit, we decided we had to get moving. We still had a long way to go before camp. Instead of going down the way we came up, we opted to drop straight down to the basin. This involved lots of loose scree.
After a quick stop in the basin to play on a snow patch, we continued down the dry gully to our big packs. From here the trail dropped several thousand feet along the Carbon River. The glacier and gorge were so amazing. We stopped several times just to try and take it all in.
The trail bottomed out at a suspension bridge which headed to Spray Park. We took this opportunity to drop our packs again and run across the bridge.
Another quarter mile down the trail was where the Wonderland Trail and Northern Loop Trail split. We now had several thousand feet to gain before camp.
I have read that the trails around Mt Rainier are either going up or down. No flat. I would now agree except I would add that the trails are either going up steeply or down steeply.
We arrived the Yellowstone Cliffs Camp just as darkness was setting in. We grab a site and setup our tents. We enjoyed a warm evening with good company.
We woke to some smokey haze, but we were still able to see the Yellowstone Cliffs from camp.
Around 9am, Andrew said goodbye to the group and headed off. He had to be back at work on Monday, so he had a long day of hiking ahead of himself. We all missed the levity he brings to a group.
Yoko, Baram, Jim, and I took our time getting out of camp. Enjoying more of the Cliffs …
and stuffing our faces with wild blueberries.
As we crested the final hill into Windy Gap, I took in one more view of the Yellowstone Cliffs. They looked like something right out of Yosemite.
Just as we started descending from Windy Gap, Jim saw something move in the bushes ahead. We talked to two hikers coming up the trail who confirmed that there was a bear eating berries ahead.
After watching the bear for 5 minutes, we decided it was time to find a spot to drop packs to start our climb of Sluiskin Mountain. Needless to say, we hiked a bit further down the trail than we initially wanted in order to give the bear lots of room.
The climb of Sluiskin Mountain was more of a commitment than either of our previous peaks. We had to bushwack down a very steep slope, then cross a creek bottom, scramble up a grass slope, followed by scree that started off stable and got increasily lose until none of us could get a foot hold any more. From here, Jim scoped out a short but dicey route up the cliff band. We were definitely not going down this way.
Once up the cliff band, it was a short hike to the saddle between the two peaks. We took a break to eat something and put on harnesses.
It was a short hike up to the base of the rock which is where things got interesting.
Jim had climbed Sluiskin before and had his trip report which helped so much. We carefully worked our way over to the east ridge then roped up. Jim’s beta had us scrambling up a step and then making a very exposed move around a corner.
There were virtually no hand holds which made the move even more committing.
From here, it was fun class 3 scrambling to the summit. We decided to do a running belay to keep things moving. But also keep everyone safe.
I was the last one to reach the summit.
A haze of smoke had filled the air and blocked most of our views, but we didn’t even notice.
We found a much better route down which kept us out of most of the loose scree. We were back at our packs in no time which was good because it was almost 6pm. Where did the day go?
We only had a couple of miles to hike to get to James Camp. Home for the night. We all wanted to clean up before it got dark, so we virtually ran down the trail. We had James Camp to ourselves that night except for the ranger.
The next day was our first strictly hiking day. No side summits. So instead we took a side trip and hiked into Grand Park.
We arrived our camp in Berkeley Park around 5pm. What were we going to do with the evening? We relaxed, ate dinner, and were in bed by 8:30pm.
Somehow, we slept until 7am. We were on the move before 9. Soon after we left camp, we heard a big splash and then a loud thump. We slowly walked around the corner to see a large black bear standing on a rock on the other side of the river. The ranger had told us about the Berkeley Park bear. This must be him.
The bear looked at us for a minute then shook off like a dog and walked off through the bushes. I have never seen a bear at Mt Rainier and on this trip, we saw two. We all felt very lucky to have this experience.
We hiked up through the fog. Before we knew it, we were back on the Wonderland Trail having closed the Northern Loop. As we started our decent into Sunrise, the fog gave the area a very peaceful feeling.
The peacefulness really resonated with the entire trip.