We slept in a little after the stressful night and all of the last-minute change of plans. And by sleeping in, I mean we slept until 6:30 AM. When we woke up, the WiFi was working again! Caroline checked AllTrails and was able to find a trail that would take us to a campsite on the Wonderland Trail.

This was exciting because I think we were all a little bummed about missing our original “challenge” hike. We had picked out Panhandle Gap and Sarvant Glacier via the Wonderland Trail because it was supposed to really push our limits. The new hike had even harder stats, and it still followed the Wonderland Trail, just heading north instead of south.

All of our stuff was already packed from the night before, so we were able to get out of the Airbnb pretty quickly. There was a minor snag when we walked outside and found out a bear had come through and rooted through all of the garbage. That was a little annoying because none of it was actually our garbage, it was from the previous guests. We decided we needed to get moving and would deal with it when we got back.

And right before we left, a massive herd of elk passed by our driveway! I only caught the tail end of it, but there were at least 15 to 20 elk, including a baby that crossed right in front of us. Not a bad way to start the morning!

The drive was only about 45 minutes to the new trailhead, but we were a little worried that all of the other trails would be absolutely slammed since a section of the park was closed. Luckily, when we got there, there was still plenty of parking. There was even a cool information sign at the trailhead about how we were in an area that used to be buried by thousands of feet of glacial ice. 

The Wonderland Trail is well known and much loved because it is a route that completely navigates around Mount Rainier. This was also significantly harder than most of the popular, more entry-level hikes in the park, so I think the trail being a little more challenging actually worked in our favor and kept the crowds lower. 

Before starting the trail, we took a quick 0.2-mile detour to check out the Box Canyon overlook. I don’t think any of us were expecting it to be this cool! We had read that it was a slot canyon, but seeing it in person was so much more impressive. The water was flowing incredibly fast, and the canyon was so deep. Pictures really don’t do it justice.

Once we got onto the Wonderland Trail, we were greeted almost immediately with steep switchbacks through the woods. These climbs were intense. About a mile in, we reached our first stream crossing at Nickel Creek.

From there, we passed a group coming from Nickel Camp who warned us that the rest of the trail was “super steep, and then less steep.” We didn’t know quite how true that would be yet. We did end up stopping around the campsite for a quick snack break. We were trying to stop and eat about every 45 minutes to make sure we were properly fueled for the hike, especially since we knew this was going to be a long one.

At about two hours in, we were still deep in the woods. It was tough because there was absolutely no breeze, and we had already climbed roughly 1,200 feet. Tyson decided his knees had hit their limit, so we gave him the keys to the car and told him that 4:00 PM would probably be a good estimate for when we would be back at the trailhead for him to pick us up.

Once we hit about 2.5 hours, we finally started getting out of the woods a little bit and seeing more grassy meadows. It was encouraging to see the signs telling us how far we had to go until our turnaround point. We kept telling ourselves that we didn’t actually have to finish the hike, but we all knew we were finishing this hike if it killed us.

After a little more walking, we finally reached some sections where we started getting actual vistas. We spotted Mount Rainier and had to stop for pictures and a little snack break. It was around 11:00 AM at this point.

About 30 minutes later, we discovered that one of the peaches we had packed from Pike Place Market had gotten a little squished in my backpack. So we took a quick break to slice it up and share it. It held up pretty well in the backpack all things considered, and it was incredibly tasty!

About 15 minutes later, the trail really started to open up. We were getting more wildflowers and amazing views on both sides of us.

The elevation gain on this hike was crazy. It’s really hard to show in pictures, but the hikers in front of us give a pretty good idea of the scale of what we were climbing. And we did eventually catch up to them! It turns out they had been hiking the Wonderland Trail for 12 days and had just about completed all 93 miles of it. How impressive!

What happened between 11:50 AM and 12:30 PM is kind of a blur. We were all pretty worn down at this point, and there was some serious discussion about whether we should turn around.

Our biggest motivator at this point was actually needing to refill our water bladders. We had purchased a water filter specifically so we could refill somewhere along the hike and avoid carrying around all of that extra water weight. This plan was going to work really well for the original hike we had planned because there were plenty of water sources before the endpoint.

This trail, however, didn’t have many good options. It was basically the first stream crossing at about a mile in or the very end of the trail. So when we saw a pretty big stream at the bottom of a basin, very far away I may add, we started to be a bit suspicious that that’s where we were going to have to climb down to, and then up out of. That was pretty demoralizing. 

Eventually, we started making our way down toward the backcountry campsite. We passed by some NPS employees putting in a new path with logs and chatted for a bit with them about the fire closures. After we passed them, we could see that the river was definitely where the camp was, and it seemed so low and so far away. This downhill section really started to kill my knees, so it was pretty difficult. Once we finally got there, it was such a relief.

Not for long, though. Before lunch, we had to find the bathroom, and it was located 0.3 miles up another hill, all the way at the end of the line of campsites. It was funny because we were expecting an actual building, but instead we were met with basically a toilet inside a box. At least the view was solid!

Bathroom needs taken care of, we hiked back down to the stream where we enjoyed our much-needed PB&J lunch. I was so looking forward to this because no matter how much GU, trail mix, and candy we had consumed for carbohydrates, we were dying for something substantial. It was glorious.

The lunch spot was pretty cool too because it was right at the massive Ohanapecosh River, and had a view of the Wauhuakuapuaken Falls! There were other campers swimming and having lunch, and it was all around a really pleasant place to rest.

We hung out for a little while and then decided it was probably time to head back. Before leaving, though, we had to pump our water. The new filtration system worked so well. We got the kind that hooks directly up to the backpack water bladders, which made it super convenient. The water was crystal clear and super refreshing.

It was about 1:30 PM by the time we started back up again. We told Tyson at this point that we probably wouldn’t make it back by 4:00 PM and pushed our estimate back to 5:00 PM. Climbing back out of the campsite was a little tiring, but we were ready to get back.

This hike was also pretty unique for us because it was the first trail I had done with a ton of alternating incline and decline. Normally, all of our hikes are a complete ascent followed by a descent, but this one was all over the place. It felt like we were going uphill both ways. Because we were. 

Once we turned around and started climbing back out, we realized just how weird we had been feeling on the way down. All of the landmarks we had passed on the way down seemed to come up so much faster on the way back out. 

We hit some more picture stops along the way and even got to see another grouse! He looked so pretty sitting right in the middle of all the wildflowers.

By 3:00 PM, Caroline’s and my knees had pretty much had enough. My patellar tendonitis had been bad since camp, but Caroline had started getting pain on the downhill sections too, and mine was just getting worse.

I remember Jordan telling us we had 4.8 miles to go, and that was just so hard mentally. We were 12 miles in at that point, and real tired. We started questioning whether we were actually going to make our 5:00 PM pickup time. We did get a text from Tyson telling us to be careful because the rangers had officially closed the trail due to the fires. We weren’t too worried because we figured they were probably trying to stop people from continuing on toward the Summerland backcountry campsite and into the Sunrise area, but it was still good to know we needed to be careful.

At some point, Jordan told us that we were hinging forward at our hips and that we were supposed to be hinging at our ankles instead to take some of the pressure off our knees. (I claimed to be standing straight up, but now that I look back, I’m pretty sure I was hunched forward like a shrimp.) We did try to start hinging at the ankle though, but somehow that made us feel like we had to go faster, and it turned into a trail-running descent.

When we passed the same sign telling us how long we had until the river crossing, it felt glorious. It was still another two miles, but at least it felt like progress.

This is when we started questioning whether we were going to be able to do the last trail on our list, Naches Peak Loop. Jordan said we couldn’t do it, and shouldn’t do it, and we took offense to that, even if he was probably right. We told him we would see how we felt in the morning.

We made really good time on the descent, although every single step was accompanied by Caroline and me complaining about the pain. Every step was basically “ow, ow, ow” or some other complaint. At least we were in high spirits. At one point Caroline started wondering whether her pinky toenail had fallen off. 

When we finally got back to the trailhead, it was such a happy moment. We ended up getting back around 5:30 PM, so we weren’t too far off from our second estimated pickup time. All in all, we were out there for about 10 hours. Even though it was super challenging mentally and physically, we had an amazing time. I was really thankful that the trail eventually opened up and we got those incredible views and wildflowers because I think we would have been a little disappointed if the entire hike had just been a strenuous walk through the forest.

Looking back, we really didn’t stop all that much on the descent. We completely broke our fueling rule and only stopped once for a GU. We took rest breaks, but other than that, we basically slammed it down the trail. We didn’t even stop to pee, so it was pretty great getting back to the car and seeing the porta-potties.

Tyson drove us straight to dinner at the Saloon, and Caroline and I had a hard time climbing the stairs, walking, or really doing anything that involved our legs. We were so tight and still in so much pain.

We scarfed down some mozzarella sticks and then our entrees. Tyson and Jordan had celebratory Rainier beers (the same beer from Twilight), and I had a house-made strawberry lemonade with a buffalo chicken wrap. Everything was so delicious after such a long day.

After dinner, we stopped at the supermarket so we could all get some ice for our knees. We were joking that there were six non-functioning knees and two regular knees in this group.

The biggest slap in the face came when we got back to the Airbnb, though. The garbage situation was so much worse than it had been that morning. It was spread all over the place, and we had to spend about 10 minutes picking everything up while Caroline and I were barely able to walk or bend over. Real bummer.

Once we finished our trash duty, we immediately got suited up for a hot tub soak. It felt absolutely amazing, and for a few minutes, I completely forgot that my knees hurt so badly.

After the hot tub, we all showered and sat around in the living room icing our injured knees and trying to figure out what we were going to do for our last day.