Day 2 - South Puyallup River to Golden Lakes ~11.5m

The Wonderland Trail is amazingly diverse, some days, you felt like you get all of that diversity in just a few miles.  This was one of them.  I was getting over a little cold and slept in a bit finally leaving camp around 9:30. Despite waking up in the forest near a river, I quickly climbed above the snow line, descended back into the forest, saw a bear and her two cubs, hiked through the fog eventually getting to a sunny burn area and finally camping near a forested lake around 4:30. Insane day.

I found this balloon at about ~5,700ft. First stretch of snow on the trip.



St. Andrews Lake

Starting to get socked in with fog

Descended below the fog - near N. Puyallup Camp

Burn approaching Golden Lakes - much prettier in person.

Day 1 - Longmire to South Puyallup ~11.1 miles

July 18th 2014, I woke up at the ass crack of dawn the morning of my hike with the intention of getting to the ranger station by their 7:30 opening, but due to unforeseen circumstances (including mailing my second cache via UPS and getting a second breakfast in Eatonville) I got there at about 10:40 and probably hit the trail at 11:30am. The hike was generally pretty sunny and the terrain was gorgeous. I saw a ton of flowers, my first glacier of the trip and generally felt strong.



My first real view of the mountain from the trail - trusty backpack in foreground

Tahoma Creek Suspension Bridge

Tahoma Glacier



Unknown wildflower

The first day had some elevation gain - I believe that this was the climb up Emerald Ridge

Avalanche Lilies and the Tahoma Glacier