After wanting to go backpacking again (since last summer) and having a crazy busy summer I finally decided, last minute to go on a trip. I checked the weather and went and got the permit. I was determined to go whether other people came along or not. After making arrangements to go I discovered we could ride bikes in to the camp so I decided to do that. Fortunately for me Auntie Kina was able to go and Kayda was feeling adventurous enough to go along.
Our destination was Ipsut Creek Campground in Mt Rainier National Park. Saturday afternoon we arrived and rode our bikes in the 5 miles to camp. Once upon a time, you could drive to the campground, but after multiple wash outs they closed the road.
Along the way we stopped to take the very short hike to Chenuis Falls.
We ended up on these bridges multiple times throughout the trip. Kayda hated that there was only a railing on one side going over the fast sections of river.
The lighting was so weird between the pool and the falls that it's hard to see both. The pool at the bottom is a beautiful blue, you can see a little of it in the photo but it was actually richer than the photo shows. I saw this and immediately thought how fun it would be to play in/on... then I felt the water. SO cold. Delicious (post filtering) but SO cold.
You can see the actual falls slightly better here.
It took us a while to get to camp because Auntie Kina was riding a road touring bike so we had to walk through all the areas with larger rocks in the road. Once we finally made it was had dinner then headed on another super short hike to see Ipsut falls. This one was pretty disappointing after Chenuis. The picture isn't great since it was getting dark out, but you can see the wood debri that has accumulated right across the main falls. We climbed closer but the view got worse instead of better. This was where we went whenever we needed to get water. Kayda loves filtering the water...unfortunately I was the one that had to dip my hand in the glacial water to fill up the bottle to filter.
Kayda saw Jarrett carving designs in a stick at San Juan so she was making a "wand" for Auntie Kina.
The next morning we ate, got our stuff together and took off on our hike. Our destination was the Carbon Glacier View Point. It's the headwaters for the Carbon river.
I have a weird fascination with stairs on hiking trails... I realized I did the same thing on our South Dakota trip.
We had to work our way across the entire river bed. It's much wider than it appears in this photo. We were lucky that people had put up cairns frequently because the trail was easily lost.
Hello Mt. Rainier.
Kayda didn't want to cross the bridge since there was so little water and your could hopscotch across it. We decided to take a picture... When you're in a stream you should expect to get wet!
Auntie Kina was overwrought with terror when crossing this stream.
According to the maps the park service provides, the hike should've been about 7 miles round trip. Auntie Kina's gps and mine didn't match up but at one sign it said we had gone 2.2, mine said 2.75 and hers said 3.25. The sign also said we still had a mile and a half to go. Auntie Kina has a lot of joint problems and decided to turn around an head back shortly after. Kayda and I continued on (normally I wouldn't let her hike alone, but it was a heavily trafficked trail and we were going back the same way).
We found a suspension bridge along the way. We didn't need to cross it but who sees one and doesn't go out on it? It actually had a decent view of the glacier but we wanted to get to the actual "viewpoint".
When we finally go to the view, we were at 4.25 miles instead of the 3.5 the map had indicated. Unfortunately, most of the glacier is covered in carbon so it wasn't very impressive. You never go near the bottom of a glacier due to rock falls, but I really would've liked to get closer to actually SEE it. From what we could see it surrounded by steep, loose rock walls. It would've been really hard to get near it so we just at lunch and headed back.
All around we ended up hiking about 8.5 miles. We were definitely ready to be done by the end of it but Kayda was a trooper. We need to do this more frequently to do longer than that!
Monday morning we needed to get up, eat and get packed up so we could make it to lunch for Grandma H's birthday. So we packed up and got back on the bikes. Going back was SO much FUN! We were able to ride through most of the wash outs and we were downhill 90% of the time. So we got to coast for almost the whole 5 miles. We were back to the car in an hour. It was a great way to finish the trip. We may just do this again since there are a lot of trails you can get to from this campground and the biking was so fun!
Side note: Riding a bike with a fully loaded pack is a little tricky but is way better than hiking along an old gravel road for 5 miles (10 by the time you go round trip). Beware when getting on and off your bike. I almost fell just swinging my leg up on several occasions.
I love camping. We normally trailer camp, occasionally car camp (drive up and tent), and pretty rarely backpack. That list is definitely easiest to hardest. Backpacking is becoming a favorite of mine. It's an entirely different experience, I love being out where it's less busy and you don't have excess noise. All the people around the campground were quiet and kept to themselves (but are very nice when you cross paths - hikers are just NICE). There was no car or plane noise, no music no banging around chunky, heavy, metal gear. It's just QUIET. There is something special about it that I am coming to love. Fingers crossed I can get out more than once next summer!
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