Indian Henry is famous as a Native American mountain guide and farmer who lived comfortably within “two worlds.” The world of American Indian and the Western world. He was a skilled mountain guide who led James Longmire, John Muir, and many other early climbing parties to Mount Rainier. Also an early settler and farmer in the Eatonville area who prospered and lived comfortably within both Native and Euro-American circles.
The first mile of the Kautz Creek Trail parallels a dry channel where the creek used to flow before storms and floods wrought havoc in 2006; that first mile of trail had to be rerouted. We stopped at the viewpoint and read about the flood of 06 and looked at how Kautz Creek has changed significantly since we were last there. After crossing the channel, the trail enters the forest and heads steeply uphill with a few level stretches here and there. While relentlessly steep the trail is in good condition overall. It passes through a section of very, very big trees. So tall that you get dizzy trying to see the top. And forget about guessing how big around it might be at the bottom.
Today our stat’s are 13 miles hiked in 8 hours and 46 minutes during this time we stopped at the ranger station for a nice break, wrote in the register. Walked on the wonderland trail over to the Mirror Lake spur trail to see what views we could find there. Had a good half hour of Rainier gazing before spending the next 3 hours hiking back down. We gained a total of 3940 feet and lost 3917 feet. My knees and toes always remember the going down...
When we hiked through the meadows of the hunting grounds, It was filled with plump tastee blueberries or huckle berries. I’m not sure which, but they were sweet and tart and actually tasted more like a pink lady apple. Not too much for flowers, although we could see we missed the lupine and columbine flowers. I saw a few orange paint bush, but they looked like they had seen their best days. I’m sure it was spectacular a week or two ago.
There are a few different ways to hike up to this point, but none are “easy”. They all involve some healthy up and some equally healthy down.
While hiking over to mirror lakes we passed by three people who were backpacking on the Wonderland Trail. First Lady had a relic of a pack. Old style pack with aluminum frame and sleeping bag bunged on the bottom. Of course hiking along in sandals. My feet cringe for her. The second person was hiking with a modern backpack, but wearing blue jeans. The jeans are wet at the bottom and quite dirty. He looks grungee. The third person had on all beige hiking clothes, but may have been packing the largest backpack I have ever seen! I am not sure how they were managing to walk, but the pack looked way oversized. I hope I don’t look like any of those people in a few days!
We encountered only a few people today, but we did enjoy the sun and blue skies all day. We found many wow moments, but not until we hike the first 4 miles through the woods. Once we popped up,over the top it was just one wow after another wow.
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