I convinced my Dad to come on this grueling 10+ mile 3500 foot gain loop somehow. As I needed to be back home in the early evening to attend a friend's housewarming party, we planned a very early start, meeting at Charlie's Restaurant about 7:00. We decided to do the loop starting at White River Campground, going in a clockwise direction, which turned out to be far better than any of the other options could have been. We hit the trail just before 9:00. Despite it being September after a rather dry summer, there was plenty of water along the trail up to Glacier Basin camp.



In the first picture we see Meany Crest on top, with perhaps a bit of the Fryingpan Glacier on the right. Below lies the Emmons Glacier. The trail to Glacier Basin camp is an old road, and it shows, being a very gradual climb and a rather wide trail in most spots. There are a few artifacts along the trail, remnants of past mining activity. It was not long at all before we reach the junction with the Burroughs Mountain trail and began the real climb.



The switchbacks begin in the forest, short and smooth. I'd say roughly one-third to one-half the way up to the top of Second Burroughs Mountain, our high point, the forest breaks up and you enter spectacular open, rocky meadows. With the lateness off the season, they are even more spectacular in color. It certainly makes the climbing a bit nicer when you have such great views, especially since I have to stop climbing to take pictures!



The White River valley is quite impressive from this angle. Sunrise can't actually be seen yet, but it's on the far hill up to the left from where you see the White River make it's turn to the right. After negotiating some rather poor trail conditions in the last part of our climb to the Third Burroughs trail junction, we finally made it! Only about few hundred feet to go! We had a nice lunch on top of Second Burroughs, along with the usual crowds of people and chipmunks who would sit right on you to gather treats. We counted the total number of switchbacks from the Glacier Basin trail to the top of Second Burroughs as either 42 or 44. Some are rather questionable in terms of being a legitimate switchback! Either way, it's a lot!



Here we see the top of First Burroughs, with Frozen Lake in the background. The northern face of First Burroughs is really quite the rock pile! From Frozen Lake, we headed down the rather steep Wonderland Trail towards Sunrise Camp. Once again, plenty of red color showing!



Here you can see the trail leading sharply up to the Emmons Glacier Overlook from Sunrise Camp, followed by Shadow Lake. Can you spot the rock wall of the overlook in the closeup shot of Mount Rainier? It wasn't long before we reached our final junction of the day which would take us off the ridge and back to White River Camp. There wasn't nearly as much color here, as the trail quickly drops into the woods, but we did find one spectacular display! The trail goes by what must be a truly spectacular waterfall in the months when it actually has water. It was completely dried up, so I guess I will have to make it up there in the rainy season or snow melt season, somehow!



There were several nice bridges on the smooth forest trail down to White River Camp. It's rather steep in places, torture on the knees, but does level out nicely towards the bottom. Back down at the camp, we toured the old ranger cabin, which is in excellent shape. There's nothing quite like a log cabin in the woods!