With a forecast for mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the 70's in the lowlands, I thought it would make a good day for an attempt to reach Camp Muir, possibly the last nice weekend of the year. I was running rather short on sleep throughout the week, and so decided it would be a better idea to get a couple hours extra sleep instead of getting up before dawn.



With my late start, and a bit of traffic on the roads, I didn't get to Paradise until about 10:45. It was just before 11:00 when I finally hit the trail, along with the expected hordes of other folks, seen in the last picture here. Only 4.1 miles to Camp Muir, no sweat, right? Too bad it's nearly a mile UP! I can't remember ever having hiked out of Paradise before, and was dismayed to see that the lower 1/2 miles of trails are both steep and paved! My journey would take me up the Skyline Trail to Pebble Creek, before climbing the Muir Snowfield.



Here we see Mount St. Helens far in the distance, and next Mount Adams behind the Tatoosh Range. You can see why they call this the Skyline Trail! Way down below lies the Nisqually River and the bridge crossing it on the road up to Paradise. Hmm, only 2.7 miles to Camp Muir, sounds just around the corner, doesn't it? Now I understand why they say climbing stairs is the best training for making a summit attempt on Rainier - because there ARE stairs! Besides the hideous pavement on the lower section of trail, the upper section of the Skyline trail has hundreds upon hundreds of stairs, many steep and very tall.



Above me, a large pack of hikers passes in front of an unusual rock formation on the High Skyline Trail. There ought to be a name for such a unique formation, but thus far I haven't found it. Much farther above, the hordes have made it onto the Muir Snowfield and are making a slow ascent. Ah, here we are at Pebble Creek, elevation 7200. It's all steep from this point up, and mostly snow! I put on my REI gaiters, though found out soon enough they weren't absolutely necessary, due to the hardness of the snow.



Altitude is gained quite rapidly climbing up the Muir Snowfield. Soon enough I was at eye level with the Tatoosh Range, and then above it. Here's another view of Mount St. Helens, with the UFO at the bottom left of the picture being the roof of the Paradise visitor center, at 5400 feet. It sure looks a long way down! I was feeling a little low on energy, and realized it had been about five hours since I ate, so I stopped and ate one of my sandwiches. Finally I reached the last unavoidable section of rock at about 8300 feet, where the picture of me was taken. The last photo clearly depicts 9584 foot Anvil Rock on the right hand side.



On the way up, I was passed by several people as I had to stop and catch my breath after shorter and shorter intervals. I wouldn't exactly say I was out of breath or feeling sore, just did not have the energy to keep going for extended periods. The character of the snow was not helping much. It was so hard that my metal tipped ski poles scarcely penetrated the surface, and the boot track that had been worn in by previous hikers was seriously falling apart into two tracks more akin to ski trails. On top of this, it was rather icy in spots, which actually made it easier to walk up the sections where the snow was covered in dirt. Scads of people were heading down as I was slowly climbing. I was surprised by the frequent lack of courtesy some people exhibited while coming down. I have gotten the impression over my months of hiking this year, that folks coming downhill should yield to those going uphill. I would think common sense makes this assumption even more true on a giant snow slope, but apparently word hadn't gotten out, as several people coming down didn't budge off the very narrow boot track I was ascending and nearly ran me over. Also surprising were numbers of people not only without gaiters or ski poles, but without even hiking boots! I wasn't aware that you could make a 2500+ foot ascent on a steep snow slope in tennis shoes, but there they were. I saw one person skiing down, which seemed the best way to go.



Due to the late hour of day, I was having second thoughts about being able to make it to Camp Muir and back, at about the 8800 foot level. It was by now already 3:00, and I stopped to have my second sandwich, hoping it might give me a burst of energy. It did not. I managed to make it up another 600 feet or so before deciding to turn around, now about 4:00. I figured if I at least made it as high as Anvil Rock, that would sound better than saying I hiked the Muir Snowfield to 8800' ! Again I didn't feel particularly sore or out of breath, just had enough slipping and sliding trying to get my footing going up the icy slope. I spoke with one gentleman on his way down around 9200 feet, who said it was another 45 minutes to Camp Muir, but would have been more like an hour and a half at the rate I was going. He also mentioned it only took him about 10 minutes to get to that point from Muir, but his 4:1 ratio sure didn't hold true for me! I found it was even more difficult going down than up. Sure, it was faster, but more like 2:1 ratio. With the hardness of the snow, I had no success digging my heels in, and managed to fall no less than five times going down, not exactly my cup of tea. I have no idea how the people I saw actually running down the snowfield in tennis shoes did it without slipping. I had to measure every step and placement of my poles and still had a tough time of it. At long last I made it back to Pebble Creek, and gave my legs a break while I ate some chocolate. I hopped onto the High Skyline Trail and passed the aforementioned strange rock formation on the way down to Panorama Point.



The aptly named Panorama Point, at about 7000 feet, is still significantly higher than Paradise, though the trail distance is just under two miles. The view from here is spectacular, and would make a great place to watch the sunrise or sunset, though obviously it still doesn't compare to the view from Anvil Rock! Apparently the park service didn't think the trail was obvious enough, so they had to put up this 'Trail' sign. Also, you can glimpse the hideosly tacky attempt at crowd control around the perimeter of Panorama Point, consisting of rusty steel barbed wire type fence posts, connected with cheap yellow rope. Numerous spots lower on the trail also exhibited this type of fencing, which was obviously neither attractive, nor going to contain anybody. What is the point? Back on the Skyline Trail, we see the turnoff to Pebble Creek on the right hand side as you are looking at Mount Rainier. As the sun was going over the horizon, the flank of Mount Adams started to glow orange. I took one final shot of Rainier, noting how very high and far away Anvil Rock looks from near Alta Vista!



By the time I got back to the car, the sun had already set and the clock read about 7:30! I was definitely glad I turned around when I did, otherwise I may have been descending by flashlight, not to mention I would not have had any time to spend at Camp Muir, once I got there! I was happy to get out of my wet socks, boots, and gaiters, and put my tennis shoes on! The sunset was turning quite brilliant at that point, so I headed over to the visitor center for an actual view of the horizon. A small crowd had gathered for the show, and it did not disappoint! I took the long way home, down the Stevens Canyon road and up over Cayuse Pass, then back down highway 410 to Enumclaw, which is really only about 20 miles longer than the route through Ashford and Eatonville to Puyallup. The time difference is minimal though, as there is almost no traffic, it's a faster road to begin with, and there are many less traffic lights.