Sourdough Superhighway | Rainier or Shine #2

@mrs.tubodb had no idea what I was doing as I ran around outside the tent at 2:00am, but she knows I'm a little nuts, so after hearing me trip on a rock as I scurried to-and-fro, she confirmed that I was OK and fell back asleep.

After about half an hour of stumbling, I too was back under the warm covers, where I stayed until well past sunrise, the camera I'd setup to capture the event mistakenly left on nighttime settings such that every photo of fantastic light on the mountain was both washed out and grainy.

Amazing what Lightroom can do these days, even with a photo I completely destroyed.

A full hour after the sun was shining on the mountain, we finally climbed down the ladder and set about our morning routine. For me, that was putting away the tent and a demonstration of my mediocre drone control as we tried to capture the magic of this particular camp site. For @mrs.turbodb, it was assemblage of three more delectable turkey sandwiches that would refresh us once we reached the Fremont Fire Lookout a little later in the day.

I should just bring someone along who can do this better than I can.

Love that view!

I really liked how the light was playing on the two triangular peaks in front of The Mountain.

It was 9:15am by the time we finally rolled out of camp and worked our way out towards the highway. With 20 miles of dirt to cover, we gambled at which of two roads would provide a smoother surface, ultimately picking the one we'd not yet travelled on this trip. It was a good thing we hadn't bought a lottery ticket at the same time, the road conditions resulting in our transition to pavement taking significantly longer than if we'd simply headed out the way we'd arrived!

Still, we had plenty of time for our 5.7 mile hike, so even as we wasted away some of the day, we weren't in any rush as we showed our America the Beautiful pass at the Mt. Rainier National Park entrance station and headed up toward Sunrise.

Now and then, The Mountain seemed to fill the windshield.

Gaining elevation, we finally got an unobstructed view.

Even with all the visitor centers and bathrooms at Sunrise closed for the season, the parking lot was nearly full when we pulled in just after 10:30am. I suppose we expected as much, but it reinforced our preferences for more remote exploration, where the hop-in-your-hand chipmunk counts are lower, and where there's little reason to lock up the truck before setting off on foot. Still, it was a beautiful day, so after dabbing on a bit of sunscreen and gathering our snacks, we fell into line behind the throng of people headed toward the trailhead, our fingers crossed that they were destined for one of the less strenuous loops, closer to the parking area.

I've definitely made it sound worse than it was. Truly, we were happy hikers.

I'd found our hike - along Sourdough Ridge to the Mount Fremont Fire Lookout - in likely the same way as many of our compatriots, by searching the Washington Trails Association (WTA) website for top-rated hikes around Mt. Rainier. With 4.5/5-star rating - and a description of the fire lookout that we'd later find was slightly misleading - we knew that no matter how busy, there were going to be plenty of views to go around.

The views started early, and never really stopped.

Even to the north - away from the mountain - Sourdough Ridge offered spectacular scenery. The tall mountain in the distance, Glacier Peak.

After an initial climb, the hike along Sourdough Ridge was more of a stroll than anything else. Wide and well-maintained, the trail worked its way along the south side of the ridge, keeping Rainier in view the entire time. Here, a path had been cleared through a large scree field, a wall of amazing rockwork on display, holding back an entire hillside of stone. The trail was still crowded, but we all moved at our own pace, leapfrogging each other as cameras were raised to capture a particular angle or overlook.

Beginning the climb up Mount Fremont.

A little higher, more of The Mountain - and golden meadow below - was in view.

As we gazed back toward Little Tahoma Peak, two hikers on the Burroughs Mountains were captured in silhouette.

Full frame fab.

Most of the elevation gain between the Sunrise parking area and the Mount Fremont Fire Lookout comes once the Sourdough Ridge Trail forks, shortly after Frozen (but not really) Lake. Here, one fork heads up onto the Burroughs Mountains, and the other climbs the steep face of Mount Fremont. For the first half of the climb, the lookout is hidden around the northern end of the ridge, but after half a mile of steady ascent, we rounded a corner and caught our first glimpse of the structure.

A little down, and a bit more up. Won't be long now.

Built in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Mount Fremont Fire Lookout is a historic structure located within the Mount Rainier National Historic Landmark District. One of four lookouts remaining in the park, it helped protect the park and national forests from fire.

With their exposed locations, fire lookouts are vulnerable to lightning and wind storms. Shortly after its completion, a windstorm blew off the roof of the Mount Fremont Fire Lookout.

This historic lookout was used to spot smoke and lightning strikes and report them by telephone. After World War II, aerial surveillance became the primary mode of fire-spotting. These lookouts, fully equipped for fire detection, are still used occasionality.

NPS sign

Tastefully restored.

Inside, the Osborn Fire Finder sits ready for action.

I watched as the electrical storm progressed toward the lookout. I was standing on the catwalk when all of a sudden, a loud humming sound started. I didn't worry too much until a glowing ball raced down the antenna. I was standing under the aerial and my hair stood on end. I remembered that you were to throw the switches on your aerial, get inside, sit on your insulated stool, and not touch the fire finder. This I quickly did. --Forrest Johnson, 1941

Grand Park, a little further to our north, and easily visible from the lookout, held fond memories of our previous days' hike.

Lookout sunstar.

As often seems to be the case, the "back" portion of the "out-and-back" hike must have been shorter than the "out" leg, as we completed it in half the time. And, while I'm sure that everyone will remind me of piddly things like gravity, and downhill vs. uphill, I must remind everyone else that this was discussed yesterday: our youthful bodies are impervious to fatigue, so surely, those details are irrelevant.

We did stop once on the way back down, but mountain goat Garry was too busy gorging himself to even look up at us.

Back at the Tacoma, the parking lot was even fuller than when we'd arrived. I was feeling a bit under the weather - "lethargic," I described it to my copilot - and with rain predicted to start around sunrise the next morning, we didn't need a lot of convincing to cancel our final night of camping in favor of getting home while the sun was still shining, and the tent was still dry.

Not that we couldn't take the scenic route.

Here in the Seattle area, a reasonably common off-road destination climbs through an area known as Stampede Pass. In all of our time exploring, we've never ventured along this route, and I'd noticed that it connected one of our major highways - I-90 - with some of the roads we'd travelled on previous visits to the Mt. Rainier area. Today then - we decided - we'd see if they actually connected.

Working our way through tree tunnels, we got very few views along the entire route.

Hello, Mountain my old friend, I've come to look at you again.

Having held off on airing down, I did my best to baby the Tacoma a bit over the bumpier sections of trail. None of them were technical, none required 4WD, and I think the vast majority could have been navigated in a minivan, so I figured we could put up with a few bumps for the 20 miles between us and our highway home.

Treeless traverse.

The best camp site we found along the way.

While we'd had to endure a bit of moisture at the nose-end of our visit to see The Mountain, by the time we were heading home the talk was of how pleasant the weather had been for hiking, and how lucky we were to live in a place such as this. Because it's true - not everyone has a mountain.

 

 

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