8-24-02
In all my years of hiking I had
only hiked from Sunrise one time. I wanted to go back and put together a loop
trip. Thank you Steve Crouch for your WTA report in 1998. I repeated his
trip and had a great time. The forecast was for afternoon clouds and a chance
of thundershowers so I was out of the house by 6:00am and on the trail by
just after 8:00. The sky was clear and the mountain looked great. First
I hiked up to the 5 way intersection at Frozen Lake and headed up towards
Fremont Lookout. The lookout is only 2.8 miles and 800' above the parking
lot. I stopped to take a dozen pictures and made it to the lookout, 7181',
in one hour. I was surprised to find several groups had beaten me there.
I spent time talking to Bob and Connie. Our paths were destined to cross
over and over this day. As they headed down I detoured up Point 7291 for
an even better view. I dropped down the other side of the point and scrambled
back down to the trail. Soon I passed Bob and Connie, telling them about my
planned trip. Soon they were out of sight and I decided to scramble up point
7317 about 300' above the trail. It was an easy scramble with great views
in all directions. According to the map, neither the lookout or the two points
I scrambled is the true summit of Mt. Fremont. Point 7317 does show up as
the highest. From here I scrambled back down to the trail and then followed
it back to Frozen Lake. Crowds were now starting to arrive and all of them
were going up either Mt. Fremont or Burroughs Mt.
I turned off on the Wonderland Trail and began to descend. Soon I caught up with Bob and Connie. They thought they would turn around soon and head back. I said goodbye and continued. Soon the trail split and I took the left fork heading to Skyscraper Pass. The trail climbed at a nice grade and in two miles from Frozen Lake I reached the pass. After a conversation with two groups of backpackers I headed up Skyscraper Mt. The climbers trail up was much easier than I was expecting. Boot beaten tread goes all the way to the top. At the summit I met 2 other hikers. They are from Wisconsin and came out to Washington for a month of hiking. They have seen more of the state in 3 weeks than most Washingtonians ever do. They were very nice people and an hour of conversation went by quickly. As we sat on the summit the clouds began to come in. When I started down half the sky was cloudy. We headed down just as a pretty large crowd ascended on the mountain. From the summit I had a good look at my proposed off trail scramble up Second Burroughs Mt. From Skyscraper Pass you can follow the ridge until it is necessary to drop down. From a lower meadow it is a steep but very straight forward climb up Burroughs. The only concern was the weather. I did not want to be off trail climbing up a bare slope to a mountain top if the lightning started. Back at the pass I weighed the loop vs. beating a hasty retreat on the trail and the loop won out.
The ridge walk was very nice. When the ridge turned vertical I headed straight down on scree and then boulders to the meadow below. The scramble was no trouble at all. At the bottom I followed the meadow around until the slope back up improved. As I began to climb up the slope I was very surprised to see two people up above me. I speeded up and caught them only to find out it was Bob and Connie again. They listened to my screwball route and decided to try it themselves. The scramble may have been a little more than they expected. Nonetheless, they did great. The ground was mostly pumice and footing was less than ideal. After about 500' of climbing the grade relented and we could finally see that Second Burroughs was in fact just above us. Over on the lower part of Third Burroughs we saw a dozen goats grazing right along the trail. They didn't seen to mind as hikers can close by them. We met up with the trail from Second to Third Burroughs about 150' below the top. The climb was 1000' in about 2/3 of a mile. On top of Second Burroughs we met the crowds. Rainier was now mostly in the clouds. Rain began to fall lightly. Some of the clouds were very dark. Most people seemed to be oblivious to the rapidly deteriorating conditions but we were anxious to get off of the exposed mountain top. We dropped down Second Burroughs then up to the top of First Burroughs. From this vantage point we could see Fremont Lookout, Skyscraper Mountain and most of the loop route we followed. As we descended First Burroughs thunder began. Just before reaching Frozen Lake for the third time I said goodbye to Bob and Connie and sped down the last 1 1/2 miles to Sunrise. The rain was light but it was dark and intermittent thunder continued. I was glad to be done. For the day I covered about 11 miles with 3100' gained. It was strange to have 3100' gained but to never be more than 1000' above the starting elevation of 6400'. This is a great loop and one I will be sure to repeat in the future.
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I turned off on the Wonderland Trail and began to descend. Soon I caught up with Bob and Connie. They thought they would turn around soon and head back. I said goodbye and continued. Soon the trail split and I took the left fork heading to Skyscraper Pass. The trail climbed at a nice grade and in two miles from Frozen Lake I reached the pass. After a conversation with two groups of backpackers I headed up Skyscraper Mt. The climbers trail up was much easier than I was expecting. Boot beaten tread goes all the way to the top. At the summit I met 2 other hikers. They are from Wisconsin and came out to Washington for a month of hiking. They have seen more of the state in 3 weeks than most Washingtonians ever do. They were very nice people and an hour of conversation went by quickly. As we sat on the summit the clouds began to come in. When I started down half the sky was cloudy. We headed down just as a pretty large crowd ascended on the mountain. From the summit I had a good look at my proposed off trail scramble up Second Burroughs Mt. From Skyscraper Pass you can follow the ridge until it is necessary to drop down. From a lower meadow it is a steep but very straight forward climb up Burroughs. The only concern was the weather. I did not want to be off trail climbing up a bare slope to a mountain top if the lightning started. Back at the pass I weighed the loop vs. beating a hasty retreat on the trail and the loop won out.
The ridge walk was very nice. When the ridge turned vertical I headed straight down on scree and then boulders to the meadow below. The scramble was no trouble at all. At the bottom I followed the meadow around until the slope back up improved. As I began to climb up the slope I was very surprised to see two people up above me. I speeded up and caught them only to find out it was Bob and Connie again. They listened to my screwball route and decided to try it themselves. The scramble may have been a little more than they expected. Nonetheless, they did great. The ground was mostly pumice and footing was less than ideal. After about 500' of climbing the grade relented and we could finally see that Second Burroughs was in fact just above us. Over on the lower part of Third Burroughs we saw a dozen goats grazing right along the trail. They didn't seen to mind as hikers can close by them. We met up with the trail from Second to Third Burroughs about 150' below the top. The climb was 1000' in about 2/3 of a mile. On top of Second Burroughs we met the crowds. Rainier was now mostly in the clouds. Rain began to fall lightly. Some of the clouds were very dark. Most people seemed to be oblivious to the rapidly deteriorating conditions but we were anxious to get off of the exposed mountain top. We dropped down Second Burroughs then up to the top of First Burroughs. From this vantage point we could see Fremont Lookout, Skyscraper Mountain and most of the loop route we followed. As we descended First Burroughs thunder began. Just before reaching Frozen Lake for the third time I said goodbye to Bob and Connie and sped down the last 1 1/2 miles to Sunrise. The rain was light but it was dark and intermittent thunder continued. I was glad to be done. For the day I covered about 11 miles with 3100' gained. It was strange to have 3100' gained but to never be more than 1000' above the starting elevation of 6400'. This is a great loop and one I will be sure to repeat in the future.
Mt. Rainier |
Sunrise |
Rainier Again |
Trail |
Meadows |
Rainier From Fremont |
From Fremont Again |
Grand Park |
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