Wonderland Trail

August 31-September 7th, 2024

The Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier is a super popular trip and there are already so many great guides on how to do it. As such, this is just a light-duty trip report to document our experience. We chose to capture visuals from our trip in a video.

Background 

Way back in 2017, Joelle and I hiked the Timberline trail around Mount Hood, in early August while on a road trip through Oregon and Idaho. Being so young and with so little experience in the mountains, the trip really blew our minds with the flowers and glacier views. But it also challenged us with intense heat, biting flies, and a 3-day itinerary that we were undertrained for. That contributed to Joelle getting an overuse knee injury on a trip in the Sawtooths with my great aunt, Barbara that we did immediately after. But, Barbara (who is now 81 and has hiked everywhere) told us “oh yeah, if you like the Timberline, you have to do the Wonderland. It's the same thing but 100x better”.

So the Wonderland was definitely on our radar, but winning a permit is rare enough that we never even bothered applying. But I knew that Rainier also does walkup permits. This summer I was living in Washington, and Joelle and I had dedicated early September for a weeklong backpacking trip. We were hoping to do PCT section K, but it had big fire closures all summer. So when Joelle flew in on August 30th as I finished a work trip, we decided to drive late into the night, sleep in the Paradise overnight parking lot, and be the first in line at the permit office. 

Day 1 - 13.5 miles to Fire Creek 

3700ft up 3000ft down

I managed to get a permit! It was nearly perfect, it just had a few disproportionately large days. We would cache food at Longmire and then drive to White River to start the trip, then upon finishing we would have easy egress to the airport. The ease of caching food without weird driving shenanigans is what makes me call it perfect.

We had a chill day of organizing, eating, caching, and driving. We didn't rush through any of this because we had both had busy weeks of work and travel and this was our pseudo-rest day. But we did have 13.5 miles to hike, so we got started at 2:30. Both of our packs weighed 27lbs.

We parked at Fryingpan Creek to minimize our last day and shortly crossed White River. I was really stoked to see the glacial river raging with late summer melt. Almost constantly we could hear underwater boulders tumbling. We did the big climb to Sunrise and then really enjoyed the evening views from the busy meadows around Frozen Lake pass, spoiling ourselves with some of the best views of the trip at the beginning. The Emmons and Winthrop Glaciers are the biggest and healthiest glaciers on the mountain! A lot of tundra plants were already turning red, glowing in the evening light.

We turned off the Wonderland proper onto North Loop, and it got dark as we neared Fire Creek camp. It was a big day and we were tired, but tomorrow would be even bigger.

Day 2 - 19 miles to Eagle's Roost 

7000ft up 6500ft down

It wasn't our preference to have such a huge day early on but this is what we had to do to get the permit. We took it slow and spent 13 hours between camps.

We started with a descent, then a huge climb up to Windy Gap for lunch. From there a huge descent brought us to the Carbon River. This was one of my favorite spots of the entire trip. The upper Carbon Glacier is the biggest and steepest rock face on the mountain, and down at the river crossing we hit the low point of the Wonderland Trail at 2900ft. The magnitude of the mountain became too great to ignore. We were looking up at a face with over 11,000ft of prominence. It felt otherworldly, truly Himalayan in scale! The primitive suspension bridge really added to this feeling.

We started the huge climb up to Spray Park as evening set in, and made it to the top just before dark. I was a little bummed to not see the area in daylight, but being up high on such a calm, clear night was magical. Shortly before camp we found a small warm tarn to go for a dip!

Day 3 - 12 miles to Golden Lakes 

3000ft up 3000ft down

We spent most of the day within the clouds of the marine layer that had come to fill the valley. It was sort of a dreary day of mostly just forest walking, but at least we weren't hot. We were both pretty worked from the big day before, especially Joelle who was fighting some blisters and nutrition deficit.

Day 4 - 12 miles to South Puyallup 

3300ft up 4000ft down

In the morning we were above the cloud deck and had sweet views of the mountain! Then as we descended into the valley we saw cool sunbeams in the faintly foggy forest. The crossing of the North Puyallup was cool because the brown water plunges into a violent gorge of waterfalls!

When we reemerged from the clouds near Klepache Valley (scenic camp, would've liked to use this one) the views were stunning all around. The mountain was glowing in late afternoon light and to the west was an ocean of rolling clouds. The trail wound through scenic tundra before plunging down to camp.

Day 5 - 9 miles to Pyramid Creek

2800ft up 3200ft down

We started climbing immediately and made it to Emerald Ridge. This is the closest the trail comes to the mountain and it was incredible! We sat on top of the grassy knob for an hour studying the complexity of the Puyallup Glacier and it's moraine. I was amazed by a slabby cascade that emerged from ice so black and red it looked like rock! I also managed to spot a goat way up on the rocky ice. It was a white dot so small I questioned if I had even seen anything, but it disappeared and reemerged multiple times.

We headed down the trail through a neat moraine and descended through the trees to the Tahoma suspension bridge. This was just like the Carbon bridge, but way higher and missing a few more planks! It was the craziest bridge I have ever walked on. I had no idea that there could be bridges like this in a National Park. Another climb, then descent brought us to a nice spot for a dip right before camp. 

Day 6 - 7.8 miles to Paradise River

1700ft up 1600ft down

We immediately crossed Kautz Creek, which has no bridge, making for our only wet ford of the trip. Luckily we were soon at Longmire and could dry our shoes in the sun while we sorted our food caches, which also had fresh socks! Today was our chillest day so we took our time at the restaurant, where one can of beer, one Sprite, and two sandwiches with fries cost $80! At least the food was good. 

Eventually we headed up along the Nisqually River in the hot and smokey afternoon. The wind had shifted to blow air from a fire near Mt Adams towards us. Luckily it wasn't enough to be unhealthy, but the mountain was obscured. We found a decent spot for a dip before bed.

Day 7 - 13.7 miles to Olallie Creek

3700ft up 3600ft down

We got a decently early start to try to beat the heat, but with an overnight low of 60 it was pretty much warm right away. Smokey again too. But we enjoyed the relative peace of the morning as we passed some of the busiest spots along the trail.

The long descent through Stevens Canyon was a lot nicer than I expected. There were lots of maples changing color for fall, and the creek carves some polished bedrock features. Stevens Creek was also the first waterway of the trip to have a nice mix of glacial water and clear water, which makes for a beautiful milky blue color! I love the raging brown rivers, but this became my favorite waterway of the trip, and I was completely surprised by it!

Shortly after lunch we crossed the Box Canyon of the Muddy Fork Cowlitz. It's right by the road but there was nobody around, and it is super cool! Over 100ft deep and so narrow that the raging torrent at the bottom is only visible from the bridge. Now it was really a good day for water features!

We got some more water at Nickel Creek (would've preferred to camp here) and climbed up and over the divide in the heat, dropping off route to Olallie for camp. Joelle was feeling great today and we made good time! Just downstream of the Olallie camp was a great spot for a dip.

Day 8 - 15.2 miles to Fryingpan TH

4600ft up 4700ft down

We woke up at sunrise to beat the heat, but luckily today was much more cloudy. A brisk climb up the ridge brought us to a stunning view of the mountain! We were stoked for all the Alpine sections today. 

Dropping down to Indian Bar was super pleasant and the crossing of the Ohanapecosh was awesome. I was awestruck by how the creek instantly goes from the widest debris fan we had seen to a narrow gorge. Then we had our last big climb! We enjoyed listening to Odesza together as we steadily gained elevation. Some tundra plants had lovely fall colors, and the glacier views were stunning! This is really an amazing section!

After we created the pass things got even better! We got to see a beautiful turquoise glacial lake, which was a surprise to me, and the Emmons Glacier was back in full view! This really is the best side of the mountain. I wish more sections of the Wonderland were this alpine, but the diversity made this extra special.

We arrived at Summerland at 3pm, where we had a permit to camp. It is definitely the best spot on the trail (Indian Bar is amazing too) but we had already been planning to skip it and finish today. I would've liked to stay but we had to get Joelle to the airport early tomorrow, so we hiked out. The descent of Fryingpan Creek was great and had some of the best fall colors of the trip! We cruised and made it back to the car before 5. After a final river bath we found a weird restaurant and drove back into the forest to camp.