Summer land! Really This is my first day of retirement!
Today as teachers and students headed back to school, and Kathi and I headed to a place called Summer-land. What a great day to do this hike...no school and sunny! From Summer-land we continued on up the frying pan drainage to a place called Panhandle Gap. It was 6.5miles to the gap for a total of 13 miles. The first three miles are slightly uphill in the woods. At the water crossing of Frying Pan creek you come to around 8 switchbacks that work their way up the side of the mountain. Once you have accomplished this climb it is like stepping into summer. The meadows were green and Mount Rainier is standing at what you feel is right in front of you. As the trail breaks out into the heralded meadows of Summerland you almost expect to hear Julie Andrews bust into a round Sound of Music; yes, it’s that inspiring. I hummed to myself. Others around us just might not think I am such a good singer! This is a very popular day hike and is also part of the wonderland trail. So heavy use and well maintained. There are also expanding views of Mount Rainier, the Winthrop Glacier and Little Tahoma
The Wonderland Trail Summer-land back country campground is at this location. We went up and took a look around. We shot some pictures of the pit toilet as well as the group sites three sided shelter.
From here we proceeded on up the trail until we left Summer land meadows and entered a rock field basin. The receded glacier had pushed a moraine of rock. We we followed the trail along side the freshly melted glacier waters up past a cirque and small glacier pods. Both ponds with glacier dust that made them look bright green. We then kept heading on up towards the gap. The last 200 feet of elevation was on a skinny trail dug into the scree under the head wall of granite rock spires things that looked like granite fingers. We took some photos and noted that the skies were pretty hazy with smoke. You certainly could snell the smoke. Like your neighbors are having a campfire smell. You could barely make out Adams and maybe Mt Hood. We left after a few minutes as the breeze was chilly. We dropped down the 200 feet and had some snacks before heading back down.
As usual hiking down, down, down is not my favorite part of the hike. It is hard on the toes and knees. We happily take a break and chat with a lady who is digging through her backpack. She is on day 9 of a 12 day trek on the wonderland trail. She had just restocked from her food cash at white river and had inadvertently buried some special snack down in her pack. Her husband was going to be dayhiking in and joining her tonight at Summer-land campground. She had waited for him for awhile, but decided to starting hiking without him. We accepted the job of looking for him on the way down. His name is John, he was from WI, tall, not facial hair, and possibly would be wearing his Green Bay Packers hat. We found him about two miles down the trail. We stopped and chatted a bit before heading on.
After finishing the hike we drove another 25 minutes on up the trail to Sunrise Visitors center. We spoke to a Ranger about the boroughs hike.. he gave us some handy info about what was in the woods, and were the uphill was.
Drove the two hours home.
2946 feet of elevation up
2874 feet of elevation down
13 miles
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