We broke down and set an alarm again last night. Today is our longest day on the entire trip, but even so, it’s still only a little over 10 miles. Need I remind everyone that I’m a frail, feeble old man and Pam is even older! Our goal was to try and keep up with John and Jenny and they were planning on leaving by 8. We made pretty good time getting ready with one minor inconvenience—the latrine. The outhouse is directly across from the group camp and they were all pretty noisy when I stepped inside. The unspoken rule is that if the outhouse isn’t locked, that means it’s in use so move along. I heard a bunch of girls walking in the gravel and I decided to grab the inside latch just in case. Sure enough, I felt a yank on the door. I thought this would indicate that someone was inside, but they weren’t quite that astute. They yanked even harder. “Occupied” I said. I guess that occupied means pull harder where these girls come from. I tried a different approach, “it’s a single and I’m already on it.”
They understood this time. “Oh, OK, Like sorry.” But I didn’t hear any footsteps walking away. Instead, three girls stood right outside the door talking about their night. I’m not against minefields in crowds when I’ve got to relieve some pressure, but three girls within 2 feet of my business transaction is a bit more than I’m comfortable with. I threw in the towel and unbraced my legs from the door frame. Needless to say, I was somewhat unsatisfied when I left.
While we were finishing packing up, John and Jenny walked by. We said we would catch up in a bit. We got on the trail by 8:05 just about 10 minutes behind them. I was not walking with my usual pep today. Fortunately, the trail to White River is only 3.4 miles and all downhill (1900’). In spite of my discomfort, or maybe because of it, we made it down to White River in less than an hour. We only passed one hiker coming up and he was finishing up today. He had already hiked 7 miles starting from Summerland where we were headed. We also noticed he was carrying an “inreach” satellite messager. We got down to the camp in time to see John and Jenny heading out of the shower house (behold the power of porcelain) to head on to our shelter. We took our turn in a different bathroom where I had left Pam while I was trying to find the trail out of camp. While we were taking our turns watching the gear while the other got down to business, the woman from the couple we met yesterday walked up. We took a few minutes to drop into their glamping spot—they had a sweet setup with an outside kitchen tent. They even had their cats with them in their trailer. It was very nice but a little too much for us—I don’t think Pam could pull the trailer down the trail.
The next 4 miles were very pleasant and level so we made good time. Once we started climbing after the Frying Pan Creek trail junction, we decided to go ahead and drop our packs and have some lunch. There were plenty of downed trees to use as tables or beds as the case may be. We took off our boots and socks while eating my favorite trail lunch: summer sausage, triscuits, olives, and Oreos.
2000’ climb on a full stomach is a little taxing until the food moves along a bit. We were a little slow in all the switchbacks and kept stopping every time we came to a creek overlook. We finally came to a level section of trail with lots of flowers along both sides and some blueberries. We stopped for a few pics and started moving on. Ahead to my right I heard some rustling. A black bear popped out less than 10 feet from me on the trail. It quickly increased to 25’ as I started back-peddling. He turned toward me and kept walking. He wasn’t aggressive but you can’t tell that from my underwear. We started yelling at him and making noise. He looked at us but was not scared or intimidated in the least. I couldn’t say the same for us.
Our encounter with the bear lasted about an hour, or maybe 4 minutes according to the video and pictures we took. We had been wanting to see a bear, but we were leaning towards one about ¼ mile away on the other side of a gully. You take what you get. After he went back down hill, we throttled on past. We had a nice adrenaline rush to propel us for a mile up the trail. We passed a couple of guys and told them what was up ahead. The younger guy immediately got out his bear spray. We told him he wasn’t aggressive, just eating and be aware.
After every high comes a low. When we started climbing again, our bodies crashed once the adrenaline was used up. We met a couple of old ladies (seriously, in their 70s) dayhiking. We told them about the bear and they said they had already seen him on their way up. Wasn’t he beautiful? I thought he could use a little grooming myself but I’d leave that for someone else. It’s important to note here that there has never been a bear attack in Mt Rainier National Park. The park service does a great job of monitoring the bears and keeping track of encounters.
The final mile up to Summerland was a bear. (Yes, I know). It started raining hard, then when we got covered up, the sun would come out. It alternated like this a few times until we just gave up and left our rain gear off. Naturally, a thick fog and steady drizzle moved in. I was about to drop my pack again when Pam saw the roof of our shelter just ahead.
We got to the shelter by 3:40. John and Jenny were already set up and relaxing. They had been there about 30 minutes. While we were recovering, a marmot made his appearance on our doorstep. We chased him away a few times. John made it his mission to scare the hell out any animals that showed up—people too if your back was turned. It worked, we weren’t bothered anymore all night.
With the fog and wind rolling in, we took our tent footprints and fly and made a wind block across the whole entrance. We had a nice comfy spot for the night when the rain rolled in. We cooked outside under the overhang and talked all evening. John and Jenny have lived the life we would like to. They spent over 30 years up in Alaska back when it was easy to find work because of the growth in the area with the pipeline. They managed to buy a few properties up there and have them paid for which gave them a steady income to do fun stuff now. They just recently moved down to the 3 Sisters area in Oregon so now we have a great contact for when we do the PCT. To top it off, they both worked for REI through the years. This was perfect for John as he is a mountain climber and they would allow him to go on his expeditions and still have work for him when he came back.
