Owyhigh Lakes loop

On Sat July 29 I ran/hiked the Owyhigh lake loop on Mt Rainier. This loop is 33 miles long with 9493 ft of elevation gain. It took me 11 hours to complete the loop.

Mt Rainier is a beautiful park with well maintained trails. It is a joy to travel along these as I work my way up to summerland. 

This next photo is of panhandle gap where I am headed. 

Once at panhandle gap you will look out toward indian bar in the distance traveling over easy snow fields. 

One of the local residents in this area,  your marmot neighbor. 

In this area I caught up with a fellow hiker/runner asking directions as all the snow had got him confused on where the trail was. I pulled up my route on my smartphone and gps watch and showed him where the trail lead. He was going my way and out for a day trip. He decided to join me for a few miles until we got to the grove of the patriarchs. Next up for us was indian bar in photo below. 

Once we climb out of indian bar I get a nice view of Rainier.

Grove of the patriarchs is a very nice trail for people that want a nice place to hike with relatively flat trail a couple miles long. I travel along this for a little while before turning left up the eastside trail. 

Here is a welcome sign. 8.2 mile till the road. I will pass by the Owyhigh lake above on my way there. This is quite a climb that goes on for awhile. Luckily for me it was mostly in the trees providing some nice shade. 

This was the toughest part of the journey for me. Walk/running along this road with no shoulder was a bit unnerving. I am glad the cars were for the most part generous with the distance they gave me. 

Northern Mother mt loop

On July 29, I ran the Northern Mother my loops in 23 hours. This route had 16,837 ft of elevation gain over 47 miles.

I started the route at 6pm from the sunrise parking lot after completing the Owyhigh route. The area around sunrise was quite crowded as I ventured out onto the trail. After spending so much time alone on the Owyhigh route, I put my headphones on to isolate myself for the crowd. After a few miles I was on the Northern trail. The scenery is amazing on Rainier. The Northern trail upheld the standard.

 My first highlight was this meadow that appears to stretch on forever.

 I would see people camping and hiking here and there. Next I had this great downhill run to the valley bottom.

The sun was filtering through the trees making this one of those special times to run. Once at the river, I would have the biggest challenge of this route. I found ribbons and cairns to follow leading me across logs to where I would need to ford. There was a hand line but the river was waist deep there. After some other attempts, I found a spot 100 feet downstream only knee deep. More flagging and cairns lead me to the trail as the light was fading in the trees.It was headlamp time now as I climbed toward spray park.

At some point I stop by a stream to filter water and have a snack. I noticed moth fluttering about my headlamp. I would then notice a shadow pass by and no moth. I think I had a bat near by I was providing  a feeding station. I took off after a bit. In a while later, I was quite tired and took a 45 min nap.

One of the things I love about night moving is watching the darkness fade to light.

I was in the beginning of Spray Park at this time. It was a joy to climb up through this terrain alone in the morning light. There tranquile to me about this.

The spell was not broken until I came across a early hiker taking photos of the sunrise. I was on my way down at this point toward Mowich lake. As time and miles passed I passed many more people on their way to Spray Park.

At Mowich lake I took a short break to eat and redo gear as it was starting to get warm with the morning coming on. I short while later I was at Ipsut pass traveling down a freshly brushed path. Life was good. I pass 5 groups of hikers in the bottom of the valley working their way up toward Ipsut pass. A easy river crossing lead me to the trail that parallels the carbon river and glacier.

This is a big climb up past Mystic lake and onto the ridge top  that is my high point of this trip. It feels good to look down and know I have easy miles to my car. I start to meet a lot of people as I approached Frozen lake above Sunrise. I am back in the busy parking lot, change and start driving looking forward to that mug of chai tea at the store in Greenwater just down the road.