August 24, 2014
It was nice to start off the second day with a descent to North Puyallup River (on Day 5 I learned that I prefer going uphill. It's easier on the knees and once you've been climbing for so many miles it's actually not so rough. Imagine that!)
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| He is clearly a morning person |
From what I can recall this day was pretty uneventful, but we did go through some interesting and different terrain.
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| North Puyallup |
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| The Silver Forest |
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| View from The Silver Forest |
I enjoyed walking through The Silver Forest very much. It was my favorite part of the hike so far. It's an old burn area with young trees, wildflowers, blueberries and awesome views under a blazing sun.
We took a lunch break at Golden Lakes and seriously considered jumping in for a rinse. The ranger said it was "the warmest" of all the lakes. It was pretty cold to me. Andy and I decided not to. I have trouble staying warm as it is. Across the lake, however, a fellow hiker we met and chatted with the previous night was also enjoying lunch. Then, we heard a splash and an "ahhhh, woooo, uuuggggh!"
"Refreshing?" Andy shouted.
To which he responded, "NO!"
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| A trail behind and to the right of the cabin leads you down to the lake |
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| Golden Lakes |
On our way out of Golden Lakes, we ran into the fellow hiker not too far away. Apparently the cold water had gotten to him and he was trying to warm up on the side of the trail in the sunlight. Brrr!
Crossing over all these rocks to get across the Mowich River was a good change of pace. There were several log bridges, too. Remember to look up from watching your footing through the rocks to find your way across. There was some bright colored ribbon which helped us locate the bridges along the way.
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| Crossing the Mowich |
The rain/thunder/hail started at this time, too. Luckily we were very close camp but decided to put on our rain gear. It was raining quite hard at times. I liked this campsite. It is tucked away in the forest just in front of the river and we made good use of the shelter during dinner time. The river water was too silty to filter, but there is a nice stream just a little farther down the trail. We had dinner with the fellow hiker guy. This was his second time hiking the Wonderland Trail in 8 days. He thought our hike the next day was going to be tough (it was) and it made me even more nervous! Andy had a good time talking to him about ultralight backpacking and he snapped a good picture of us ;)
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| Dinner under the shelter |
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| Our campsite was mostly sheltered under the trees during the rain |
Total miles: 15 miles
Total time on trail (including breaks): 7.5 hours
