This was a double first for us: 1) we slept without the fly so we could see the stars and the mountain, and 2) we set an alarm so we wouldn’t miss the sunrise. In my opinion, sleeping without the fly wasn’t all that great because once I take my glasses off, I can’t see crap. Plus, it gets damn cold in the mountains at night. It was kind of cool rolling over, finding my glasses and putting them on without them fogging up (since my body temperature was low enough to not cause fogging) and being able to see the mountain. It took about the same amount of time as it would if Pam got up before me and left the tent unzipped when she went out—in other words, it was a much faster way to see the mountain because Pam NEVER gets up before me when we’re camping. (For the sideline observer, she will be saying “I get up at 6a every day for work” before she even reads this parenthetical comment—I know this woman!)
We were fed and packed up by 9. We had a little extra incentive to move today since we were heading into Sunrise. We were picking up our first food cache and there’s a cafeteria there so we can get a hamburger. Pam is trying to eat vegetarian, but I know she won’t pass up a dead cow today.
Once we got past Skyscraper Mountain and crossed the ledge into Berkley Park, we started running into people that were out day hiking. We stopped and talked to lots of people: an old guy in his 70s from Tacoma going to hike up Skyscraper, a husband and wife out to see the wildlife (which there was a lot—marmots and mountain goats, but the goats were moving further off the trail with all the people), a volunteer ranger that was heading out to do some latrine maintenance in the camps. As we got closer to Sunrise, there were families with kids, old people, large people, foreign people, pets and everyone was interested in the hike we were doing since we had obviously been out for a while (as evidenced by our packs, dirt on our clothes, and smell emanating from our bodies).
There are a lot of trails around Sunrise and it is easy to lose your way if you’re not careful. We finally determined the quickest route into camp and ran into John and Jenny heading up to get their cache. We said we catch up in a bit after we set up camp. We chose site #2 which overlooked the back entrance to the campground and not too far from the bear lock boxes or the outhouse (4 walls and a lock—the new definition of luxury).
It was still only about 1 when we got all set up and stowed away. We headed up to Sunrise Visitor Center along the same route we saw John and Jenny head up. Since we had already been here 5 days before, we knew where to look for our cache. We grabbed the food and headed to the cafeteria. Somewhere along the line, we missed them but that’s ok. We grabbed a table and started recharging all of our electronics. We got our $40 worth of cafeteria food; at least that’s how much we paid for 2 hamburgers, fries, side salads, and drinks.
We tried to get a table out of the way so our odors wouldn’t offend anyone. After we got done eating, we filled up our water bottles (without having to filter the water—civilization amazes once again) and organized our food to get it back to camp so we could organize it again there. There’s a lot of organizing to do when you go backpacking. While we were organizing the second of 3 times, a man from Microsoft and his 19 year old son sat down next to us to eat. They had just finished hiking the trail so we tried to glean as much info off of them as we could.
There was an older couple sitting next to us and I could tell the guy was listening and wanted to talk with us. They were a nice local couple. He was retired military and a current postal worker. We ended up sitting there talking with them for a couple hours while we took turns making use of porcelain in the area (front country people have it made and take it for granted). Pam also bought a few things she wanted which included dessert AND m&ms. Eventually, all of our items got fully charged so we started to head back to our camp. The couple invited us to visit them in their camper in White River Campground the next day. We thanked them but said we doubted that we would have the time since we had over 10 miles to hike the next day.
We got back to camp, organized the food (didn’t I tell you?). Then we boiled some water for hot tea, grabbed a Lara Bar, and headed over to John and Jenny’s camp to talk. They were supposed to have a 17 mile day tomorrow because they couldn’t get a spot in Summerland. It seems the father of my next dog had given us the last site and it was actually the group site which was a shelter capable of sleeping 8. We invited them to shorten their day and spend the night in our pad. They accepted.
Sunrise Campground is noisy. Not too long after we hit the sack, flashlights were shining all over our tent. People were still coming in at the late hour of 9p. There was way too much activity for us here. If there is an option to avoid this camp, I’d recommend doing so—it’s just too close to a parking lot.