Sunrise to Mystic Lake

You guys, today was THE BEST. Taking a personal day from work to go run in the mountains? Highly recommended. My friend, Heidi, was crewing for two of her friends running the Wonderland Trail in three days (!!!), and she asked if I’d be interested in a run at Mt. Rainier National Park.

I love that park, so YES, I was totally game. We settled on running from the Sunrise Visitor Center along the Wonderland Trail to Mystic Lake and back. It’s nearly 20 miles, with some elevation, but nothing crazy or too technical.

We headed out at 8am from the Visitor Center (also with another friend, Wendy, who was doing a little less mileage due to recovering from an injury.) There were hardly any people out on the trails yet, and that’s my favorite time of day. The first part of the trail I’ve seen a number of times, but it’s still beautiful, and with all of the wildflowers and scenery, we stopped for photos often. Nobody complained. 🙂

In addition to seeing wildflowers, we also saw some wildlife! My favorite was a pika on an early rocky section. He was dragging what appeared to be a chunk of bush with him, and he paused in the middle of the trail, like he was trying to camouflage himself. We laughed, but he ran away before we could snap a photo. We also saw six marmots in the morning! I’ve only really seen them sunning themselves on rocks, but these fellows were very active, and running around a lot (looking derpy and cute.)

Around Skyscraper Pass (there’s a spur trail to Skyscraper Mountain) we encountered a patch of snow! It was very welcome as the day was already heating up, so we dropped some in our hats – very refreshing.

After this, we headed down into the forest and started to go down, down, down. At this point it dawned on us we’d have to come back up, but that’s a concern for a few hours later! We began to meet plenty of backpackers on the trail, and everyone likes to talk routes and destinations – the language of the trail. 🙂 Here Wendy begrudgingly turned around, in deference to her healing injury, but it was great to have had her company for awhile!

Heidi and I shared fantastic conversation today, which made the beautiful miles melt away. At one point we got on the topic of whisky, and she asked great questions, and I very happily told her much of what I learned from our Scotland trip last year. Besides running, whisky is my favorite topic (if the title of the blog wasn’t a clue!), and I was thrilled she was interested to learn about it (or at least appeared to be, lol.)

Then we came to a roaring creek (maybe Winthrop Creek?) that was full of murky snow melt in a hurry. I was very grateful for the sturdy log bridge!

The remainder of the miles to Mystic Lake were mostly pleasantly shaded. We stopped there for a snack and observed that the bugs were out in force. So bring bug spray if you’re headed that way.

Our way back went quickly. It had definitely warmed up, so we were sweating buckets. Anytime we encountered a stream, we soaked our hats and bandanas in to cool off. Also visibility was terrible due to smoke from the fires in British Columbia, but thankfully it didn’t seem to bother our breathing at all.

I will also say that snow wrapped up in a bandana around the neck is heavenly, and snow dropped down your sports bra is equally refreshing. At least on an 83 degree day. 🙂

We had a blast today, and I’m so grateful Heidi invited me to join her on this run. I absolutely love casual long runs like this one where I can truly enjoy the scenery, and today was perfect. I’ve now completed roughly 26 (of the 93 total) miles of the Wonderland trail, and can’t wait to explore more of it!