Laurabelle's Blog

This weekend Jeff and I hiked a section of the Wonderland Trail at Mount Rainier. The Wonderland Trail winds a 93-mile circle around Mount Rainier, and some day (maybe soon) I hope to do the whole thing. (But not yet!)

This time we planned to start from Longmire and hike northwest along the trail with Mirror Lakes as our eventual goal. We were to spend the first night at Pyramid Creek, then hike up to Mirror Lakes the second day and come back down to spend the night at Devils Dream. On the third day we would hike back out. We thought it was a pretty good, conservative plan. It’s only about 3.5 miles from Longmire to Pyramid Creek and 2.2 from there to Devils Dream. Mirror Lakes are another couple of miles beyond Devils Dream (but they’re relatively level miles—relatively).

That was the theory, anyway. As we all know, practice is always its own creature.

You can find our proposed route on the Mount Rainier National Park Trails Map (look toward the lower left-hand corner). Also see another hiker’s description of traveling essentially the same section of trail. Finally, the Seattle Times has a nice set of pages about the Wonderland Trail.

Yesterday Jeff and I went back to Lower Lena Lake. The weather had been sunny for the last six weeks, so we assumed we didn’t need to worry much about rain. Think again, roared Mother Nature. The water poured down in buckets.

Not that we minded (much). Washington is already in an official drought emergency this year, so we were overjoyed to see rain. The woods and and the lake were beautiful in the rain and mist, and the only people we saw on the trail were nutjobs like ourselves.

I wouldn’t have been half as happy if it weren’t for my gear. (Even though we didn’t expect rain, we had prepared for it anyway. Thank heaven for over-preparedness.) My new rain hat, which I had bought mainly for its sun-blocking potential, kept my head (and more importantly, my glasses) perfectly dry. My extra-dorky poncho covered my body and pack, earning the envy of Jeff, who became ever-more soaked during our hike. New nylon pants, while not exactly waterproof, politely refused to absorb any water. Last but not least, my weather-proofed boots allowed me to slosh with complete impunity through the running water on the trail. (Jeff, whose boots needed to be re-treated, played the rock-hopping game in an attempt to keep his feet somewhat dry.) On the other hand, I envied his wool gloves, which kept his hands warm even though they were completely soaked. Luckily I know where he got them. ;-)

We carried our full packs up the trail, in the hope that the weather would turn. Since it didn’t, we turned around and headed back down to the car again. This made it a harder hike than we had planned, and my feet were toast by the time we got back down. Nevertheless, I’m glad that we went and that we carried our packs with us. It was good training for the next hike, and in any case, the weather would surely have turned once it was too late to change our mind.

Oh, and still no pictures. The camera isn’t waterproof, so I left it in the car. Maybe next time! (There will be a next time.)

It’s snowing so much today that the steeper hills are practically impassable, and buses are slipping even on relatively mild hills like University Way. It’s complete craziness! The University is still open, but classes were cancelled as of 12:30 today. Guess when my first class was supposed to start. *smirk*

Unfortunately I was already at the University when I found that out, since I had come early in order to buy textbooks before the lunchtime rush, and Jeff has work instead of class and thus didn’t get off. That bites, because the only thing that would make the slog home bearable is his company. So I’m sitting in the computer lab in Mary Gates, waiting for him to—

—Wait, never mind, he just walked in. He couldn’t find his boss, so we’re going home. Rock!

P.S. It’s almost 22:00 right now, and it’s raining, and the water appears to be freezing on top of the snow. Kathy told me not to worry about coming in tomorrow if the weather’s bad (yay!), but Jeff might have class. Even if he does, he might not go in. It’s going to be wretched and dangerous out there tomorrow.

This week has had its good points and its bad points. The bad is, naturally, the most spectacular. Seattle got a lot of rain this week, and its impact on the drainage system was compounded by the fact that the rain knocked the last leaves off the trees and into the sewers and blocking them. There was a lot of flooding of roads, including Aurora, which is one of Seattle’s few north-south thoroughfares and coincidentally the one traveled by the bus I take downtown on my morning commute to work. A couple of idiots plunged into a nice big puddle, got water in their engine air intakes, and stalled or even broke their engines. The upshot of all this is that this bus ride, which normally takes me 15-20 minutes, lasted more than two hours on Tuesday morning and made my commute 3.5 hours long. I was not a happy camper.

Weather’s been nonsense recently. Buckets of rain while I was out of town, then a couple of weeks of cold like midwinter and dry as Nevada. Now it’s cloudy, gray, and pitch-black at three in the afternoon. Brr.

Okay, that last one is a teensy bit of an exaggeration. But man, I felt like I needed a flashlight, a rain coat, and a parka when I left work today.

I’ve been in Seattle, the land of rain, for eight months now, and we’re just now having the first real thunderstorm. A couple of minutes ago there was a huge crash of thunder which alerted me to the fact that rain was pouring down outside. If Maggie were here, I would grab her and run dancing outside to get soaked among the tumbling droplets, but she’s not, and I’m a wimp, so I won’t.

Yesterday Jeff dragged me to Jason Webley‘s first concert of the year. It was as much theater as music, and while I enjoyed it at the time, I’m not quite decided about whether I’d go to another concert of his. I probably would, but it was certainly strange. Men and women were in segregated seating (this irked Jeff, since this is the only time Jason has done this at a concert and the only time Jeff brought a girlfriend along), and there was a strong fertility theme (which involved throwing seeds and condoms, one of which, allegedly vanilla-flavored, hit me just above the left breast). That was all fine and good and fun, although I overheard one woman complaining, This is getting a bit too heterosexual for me.

The concert’s other theme was flying, which led to trekking out to a clearing in Ravenna Park, in the light rain, and launching a paper hot-air balloon powered by an alcohol fire. This being a small clearing in a thickly-wooded park, the balloon lost no time in catching itself in a tree and burning. At that point, Jeff and I left; the little alcohol fire was still burning, and the rest of the crazy people, undaunted, were evidently proceeding to launch another flimsy and fiery flier. Evidently Ravenna Park didn’t burn down, since I haven’t heard anything about it in the news, but nevertheless I’m not too crazy about going to concerts with pyromaniacs with no common sense. There’s not much sense in handing out condoms if we’re all going to play with literal matches.