Karen and Tom Wanderings

Mt Tom Our son Brian, who is home for a summer job in Seattle, convinced his old man to join him on an ambitious (for Tom) overnight trip in the northern portion of Olympic National Park.  It all started back in February with them trying to get permits to backpack around Mt Rainier on the Wonderland Trail.  While we didn't get those permits, Brian also applied for a permit along the High Divide ... and got it.  Since his summer job would not allow him to take vacation, it was necessarily a Saturday-night-only reservation ... making it about 8-10 miles a day and about 4000' elevation gain and loss. He invited Tom with a tempting offer:  he would carry "all the stuff", but would be blasting ahead so he could explore everything.  While this seemed attractive, Tom was unsure, since he kept envisioning getting separated by one of several scenarios (Tom wasn't physically up to it, Brian crossing a snowfield that Tom wasn't comfortable crossing, the campsite...

Taking advantage of our spectacular early-summer weather here in the Northwest, we headed to Mt Rainier National Park for a revisit (for Tom) of Crystal Lakes.  Last year, smoke dampened the views.  But not this time!  Wow!  Honestly, we were pretty surprised that a hike this far up into the mountains was essentially snow-free in early July, but we didn't argue.  We were treated to a constantly changing array of flowers starting in our initial forested climb continuing high above the lake.  The vivid colors of the flowers, lakes, meadows, and trees were a delight for the eyes.  We extended the nominal hike a mile or so beyond the upper lake to Sourdough Gap, just a short ways beyond the ridge above the lakes.  As is typical, the descent turned into a bit of a slog, but if that's the price for a day like this, we'll pay it.  As an added bonus, we drove up to Sunrise (since we were so close, and weren't in a hurry) for some close-up views of Th...