After about a year of planning to hike together, fellow nwhiker and hike-a-thoner Janelle and I finally made it happen. The destination was obvious – our beloved Mount Rainier.

Janelle hikes more on that mountain than anyone I know, and like me, she never gets sick of it. We keep returning to the same places over and over again, but it never feels the same.

This time, it felt cold. Really really cold. (This seems to be the general theme of my trip reports lately, especially since I missed out on the latest inversion.)

We climbed up to Mazama Ridge just as the mountain decided to hide behind a curtain of clouds. We sat down for an early lunch and briefly considered just going home. But then, ooh! aah! magic started happening!

The mountain reappeared, and at the same it started snowing perfect, tiny snowflakes, like someone was sprinkling glitter all over us.

Buoyed by the beauty, we abandoned all thoughts of leaving. In fact, it turned into one of those ‘we don’t wanna leave’ days.

Luckily we could feel our toes again now that we were moving, so we were able to hang out in Paradise the rest of the day.

Janelle is usually quite the early bird, so I was pretty pleased with myself when I influenced her to try a more Ingunnesque schedule – staying for sunset.

She seemed to enjoy it.

This was definitely one of my favorite winter trips to Mount Rainier – I can’t imagine a better way to bond with a new friend.

Since we’re getting close to December and Hike-a-Thon took place in August, I should probably finish up my damn recaps already.

My friend Dani is lucky enough to be in possession of a wonderful mountain cabin nestled in the eastern foothills of Mount Rainier and, luckily for me, kind enough to invite her friends there often. This time, the plan was to have a girls’ weekend, but somehow I ended up staying for five days. That cabin is hard to leave.

Sure, I had Hike-a-Thon miles to cover, but the main focus of the trip was to hang out with friends old and new while marinating our livers in Disaronno. Nevertheless, I did manage to squeeze in two short hikes in the middle of all the debauchery.*

Man alive, Naches Peak Loop was amazing! I had never even considered hiking it before because it’s just so short and so crowded, but the views you get during those quick three miles are to die for – and I think I was too high on the smell of lupine to care about the crowds.

The highlight of the trip was seeing Josie released back into the wild after months and months of ACL rehab. It was amazing to watch – first we decided to test her knee on the flattish hike to Sheep Lake…and then she felt good enough to continue up the not-so-flat part to Sourdough Gap…and then she pushed on to the Crystal Lakes Overlook, completing 7.5 miles on her first real walk since March. She’s pretty awesome. And she’s proof that Disaronno gives you superpowers.

*we’re quite the wild group of old, married bookworms.

Three weeks into Hike-a-Thon, my stats are as follows: 78 miles hiked, 20,200 feet of elevation gained, a whole bunch of trip reports not yet written, and $290 raised for trails. Thank you so much for your donations!!

(I was even getting close to my t-shirt fitting comfortably, but after spending a week on the couch eating ALL THE THINGS in order to settle a queasy belly, I fear I’m back to square one in that department.)

My favorite part of the month (so far) was my last-minute vacation at White River Campground in Mount Rainier National Park. JK and I started the trip by hiking to Skyscraper Mountain.

I think pretty much every trail that starts at Sunrise is a winner, but Skyscraper is a favorite of ours since you get to hike through the gorgeous meadows in Berkeley Park and up a peak with volcano views in every direction.

Unfortunately, it was way too hot for the lardy marmots to be out, but we did see two bears (from afar, very afar).

This marmot was overheating too, so we figured a dip in Shadow Lake would be nice…until we saw the no swimming signs. Boo!

After Skyscraper, JK dropped me off at White River and drove off to get back to work/real life/the nutrias while I got to spend the next two days reading Jitterbug Perfume (excellent) and hiking (beyond excellent).

I was planning to hike to Summerland the next day, but when I woke up to cloudy skies and a couple of raindrops on my tent, I took it as a sign that I should sleep in and keep reading. It cleared up by early afternoon, so I went out for an easy stroll to Glacier Basin. The trailhead was next to my tent!

I didn’t have high expectations of Glacier Basin, so I was pleasantly surprised to find an inviting, green meadow and a cute frog pond which provided an excellent view and a place to enjoy a piece of Sin Dawg.

I kept an eye out for the famous Glacier Basin bear, but all I saw was a steady stream of climbers coming down from the Emmons route – some of them looking very motivated by the relative proximity of beer and fried foods, most looking like exhausted zombies.

After much reading and another night’s snooze (dreaming about beets), I headed out for the main part of my trip – Summerland!

Since I was on foot, I had to hike on the Wonderland Trail just to get to the trailhead…which turned out to be an extra five miles round trip of not very interesting forest. But hey, more miles for Hike-a-Thon, yes?

At least the miles were easy and went by quickly, so it didn’t take too long before I could sit down on a rock at Summerland and just take it all in – Little Tahoma from a unique angle, a lenticular cloud cap on Mount Rainier, and a meadow that was absolutely LOUSY with marmots.

Oh, the marmots!! I was in heaven.

They would eat, chase each other (those chubby little buggers are fast!), eat, fight, eat some more, and then collapse like marmot-skin rugs on the snow. Next time I come to Summerland, I hope it’s on a backpacking trip. I would love nothing more than to spend all day watching my husky spirit animals.

Unfortunately I had to get back to White River Campground in time for JK to pick me up, so I bid the marmots adieu and reluctantly hiked away from the views.

The highlight of my hike back to camp was running into Gabi, hiking friend and contributor to Hike-a-Thon – thank you Gabi!! She and her beau were a couple of days into the Wonderland Trail, and looking way too fresh for people who have hiked for days without a shower. She wrote a great report of their adventure on her blog.

The second highlight was soaking my feet in an ice cold pool by White River when I came back to camp. That last extra bit of trail seemed to take forever, and my dogs were barking after five hikes in six days. Huge thank yous and snorgles to JK for facilitating the perfect first week of Hike-a-Thon!

(*I didn’t bring a GPS, so these stats are from the Wonderland Trail guidebook. The gain sounds high to me…but in my experience, much of the Wonderland Trail is so well graded that elevation gain feels easier than it usually does.)

Last weekend it was time for our annual trip to Noble Knob, this time to share our favorite trail with Carlos, Deborah, and our favorite Small Person, Nathan.

In spite of the “mostly sunny” forecast, we spent the approach walking inside of a cloud. A very, very cold cloud. Luckily the trail had lots of eye candy to offer even though Mount Rainier was hiding – all my favorite wildflowers were on display: western anemone, columbine, paintbrush and the always beautiful tiger lily.

We seemed to be right at the cloud line the whole time, and the sun was this close to breaking through…

…but by the time we made it to camp, we were firmly enshrouded in the fog. It felt more like late September than June, and the nutrias, devoid of fur and fat, spent the evening puppy-piled in JK’s sleeping bag. Brrr. Nathan stayed warm in the tent in his sleeping bag and fancy backpacking suit.

But ahh, Noble Knob came through for us yet again! When we peeked out of the tent in the morning, we were above the sea of clouds, the Alpine Lakes Wilderness peaks rising up as jagged islands in the distance.

Now that the sun was out, it was warm enough for Nathan to come out and play. Happiest baby on the rock!

He also got to take a good look at what will likely be his future playground, Mount Rainier.

Wellie and Basil had to pose for photos…

…and I got to engage in my favorite pastime, al fresco reading.

While I reread Wild and Deborah was on baby duty, the boys (minus Nathan) hiked up the Secondary Knob. I took photos of them and tried to make it seem like a harrowing climb…

…but actually it looked like this:

It might have been an easy ascent, but the mosquitoes were ferocious. By the time they made it back to camp, Basil had been gnawed on by so many bugs that his whole face swelled up. Nathan graciously donated some of his Baby Benadryl, and JK and I packed up as fast as we could.

We left the others on the summit since packing up and hiking out with a baby takes a bit longer and we didn’t want to take any chances with Basil. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem bothered by the situation at all, he was his happy self and in full-on explorer mode.

He got lots of sympathy from the White River 50 Mile runners we met along the way, and by the time we got back to the car, the antihistamines had worked their magic and Basil looked almost back to normal. From now on we’ll always carry nutria-appropriate doses of Benadryl (10mg) with us, and put cedar oil on Basil to keep the bugs away. Poor little guy.

JK had promised our Norwegian guest a ski tour, so when the summer solstice forecast read sunny all the way, he took the day off work and drove us to Paradise. He brought his randonnée skis and Jolli rented telemark gear – a true Norwegian!

I, the bad Norwegian, was on foot. Honestly I wasn’t planning on going very far, so I brought my Kindle and my Zune, prepared to hang out at Panorama Point while the guys skinned up to Camp Muir. I haven’t done any really challenging hikes in a long time, elevation gain-wise, so I had sort of lost the confidence I used to have about being able to keep up with other people and join them on longer dayhikes.

Not that I haven’t been enjoying our lazy hikes this year, au contraire – I love late starts, hanging out at lakes and taking summit naps…but it would be nice to not have to turn down hiking invitations because I’m worried that I won’t be able to push myself.

Anyhoo, back to Rainier. The weather was amazing – strong wind to begin with, but it died down once we hit the Muir Snowfield, leaving us stripped down to base layers and roasting in the glorious sun. Somehow I was consistently ahead of the boys the whole way, so I decided to just turn on my Zune and keep going.

Between the gorgeous views and the perfect playlist – mostly Hot Chip and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros – I felt amazingly energized. Even as we got close to 10,000 feet, I kept stopping to throw down dance moves. Hmm, maybe the altitude affected me more than I thought.

I reached Camp Muir, 10,080 feet, infinitely proud of myself, confidence restored. I ate my disgustingly soggy Subway sandwich (note to self – Subway works better as a winter hiking food) and chatted with some climbers while waiting for JK and Jolli to arrive.

After taking group photos, I left the boys to their own soggy sandwiches in order to get a head start – skis beat feet on the downhill. I got some good glissades in where it was steep enough, but the snow was so soft from the heat that I spent most of the 4,700 feet of elevation loss posthole-running.

As for JK and Jolli, all that uphill paid off in surprisingly good skiing. They were all smiles as they caught up with me, just above Pebble Creek.

I hiked down to Glacier Vista with some very nice climbers celebrating their successful summit bid, then posthole-jogged the rest of the way to the car, still high on endorphins and thickening air.

Just as I was telling Jolli that the only thing missing from our day on the mountain was a fox sighting, this little guy came into view. With that, it was official – we’d had a perfect day.