Camping, Day 3
Tadpole at Olallie Creek
Family lounges at Olallie Creek
Snowpack toward the loo We started out late. Far from being the first one up, as I usually have been in the past, this vacation I seem to have consistently been the last one to finally drag my butt out of the sleeping bag and get ready for the day. I didn't bring any coffee with me this time, just hot tea, but it's good and it gets us going in the morning.
Omaha made oatmeal, and then we made PB&J sandwiches, loaded up the trail mix and water supplies, and headed out for Olallie Creek.
The trail was up the whole freakin' way! 4.3 miles, all of it uphill, to get to the creek and its attendent campsite. This was one of those places that the trail guides admit is "rarely visited," because it's a short enough hike that hardcore hikers push on to the next camp, but for a day hike there's nothing to it-- no vast Rainier vistas, no beautiful meadows, no amazing waterfalls. Just a lovely little creek slightly above the summer snowline, in the midst of a forest that rarely has human visitors. We refilled our water bottles often from the little streams that line the mountains; my Pur water filter pumps is one of the best investments I've ever made, and I'm down to my last replacement filter, and Pur has long gone out of business.
There was snow above 3900'. The girls were very pleased. At one point we stopped alongside a stream to rest and the girls were utterly fascinated with this tadpole clinging to a rock, wiggling back and forth, its ultimate goal utterly unknowable. There were a lot of trees fallen across the trail, and we had to climb them repeatedly, scraping our backs going under or risking our necks going over.
When we reached the campsite itself, the girls took off their hiking shoes and dunked their feet into the river-- and then Kouryou-chan succeded in dunking more of herself in, making herself very cold.
One of the things we found up at the campsite was one of those horrific, but still absolutely necessary, vault toilets. This one had a surprise-- a geocache stored about two yards away. It was a green ammunition box, locked with a padlock that was not marked with the US National Park Service mark on it, as all the other padlocks I'd seen on Rainier are. We're not sure what was in it, obviously, and geocaches are illegal in national parks, so what it was doing there and why, we have no idea.
Equally distressing, a snowpack covered the trail leading to the toilet and obscured the path, and someone had apparently chosen not to quest up the snow and done their business right there on the side of the trail. Gross. We reported all of this to the park rangers; dunno what they can do about it.
Home was downhill, blessed be. We went home and had the bean & beef premix that Omaha had made before we left-- very high in protein and carbs, and damned yummy, despite Yamaraashi-chan's complaints. It's one of those things you only ever eat while camping.
After that, bedtime. And we were all ready for it.
All of these photos were taken while we lounged at Olallie Creek.
Kouryou-chan
Yamaraashi-chan
Omaha