Mount Rainier: Indian Bar

The Wonderland Trail is a 93-mile loop that encircles Mount Rainier. One of the most beautiful and popular sections of this trail is the 18-mile east side from White River to Box Canyon. Between that 18 miles are the two most popular backcountry camps, Summerland and Indian Bar. This is the highest elevation stretch of the Wonderland Trail, and in some years parts of the trail will still be snow covered well into August.

As the summer was winding down and I had yet to hike this section of the Wonderland, I knew that had to change. Although I wasn't able to hike the entire 18-mile section, I decided that a long day hike was in order. The plan was to start at Box Canyon in the southern part of the park and hike to Indian Bar Camp, and back. It would be a long day, about 14.5 miles round trip and almost 3,000 feet of elevation gain.

I only came up with the plan as a spur-of-the-moment idea the prior day. I thought I would probably be on my own. Many of my hiking buddies had already completed their work seasons and headed home. The ones that were still around probably had to work that day, but I decided to go talk to some friends that also lived in Longmire (the Park community) to see if anyone might be up for it. As expected, most people that I asked weren't able to come along. However, I was able to convince my friend, Rachel, who had also been wanting to explore that section of the Wonderland. I was happy to have some company!

I picked Rachel up the next morning, and we headed out to Box Canyon (about an hour drive east of Longmire) to start the hike.

By this time of the year, the gloomy days were starting to outnumber the nice ones. This one was on the gloomier side, but it could have been a lot worse. I was still hopeful that we would still get some nice views.

Like many other hikes at Rainier, this one started off in old growth forest, before ascending switchbacks and opening up into wildflower meadows with stunted subalpine fir trees.

Although it was too cloudy to get vast, sweeping vistas, there were still nice views to be had.

 

Although it was getting late in the season, the high country still rewarded us with wildflowers aplenty. The bear grass was the first to catch our eye.

 Blooming bear grass:

Along the way, we started to see some large, fresh hoof tracks in the mud on both sides of the trail. We agreed that it appeared to be a large herd of elk. The tracks looked fresh enough to be from the same day. As we continued, we kept a lookout for a possible encounter, but finally the tracks veered away from the trail. A sighting would have been welcome, as I had only seen one elk all summer (which happened to be my first drive into the Park.)
 
The trail took as over rolling hills and through meadows. By now, we had gained most of the elevation that was needed but we were still ascending slightly. The more we gained, the more impressive the wildflowers became.
 
Lupine, pasqueflower seedheads, arnica, and false hellebore:

 The trail cut through several meadows similar to this one:

We seemed to be making good time on the trail. That thought was reaffirmed by this sight:

The last stretch of the trail descends into this basin, where Indian Bar camp is located!
 
As we approached the camp, there continued to be no lack of wildflowers, especially of the lupine variety:

 From there, it wasn't long before we arrived. This creek would mark our ending point:

Above the creek, looking down on a small waterfall:

It was still early in the day, and we were both really tempted to continue up the trail towards Summerland Camp. However, I had made plans with some friends for an "end of summer" get-together that evening and I didn't want to bail. I convinced myself that this would be our turnaround point after a lunch break.

When we were ready to start retracing our steps, the clouds were still stubborn about giving us great views, but the nearby ridgetops were barely visible. There were several waterfalls like this one trickling into the basin:

 

The hike back provided us with some more awesome scenery, and the clouds lifted just enough to give us the best views of the day.

I always notice things on the way back that were missed while hiking to my destination. Here are a couple of examples.

Bracted lousewort flower:

 A possible sign of a bear, clawing at the tree bark in search of bugs:

The hike back to the trailhead went by fast. As we descended back into the old growth, we knew we were getting close.

Here's a view looking up into the canopy of some huge Douglas fir trees:

We were obviously going to get back to the trailhead before I had planned. Rachel and I are both tree enthusiasts, so we took our time enjoying the big trees.
 
Amazingly, we finished the hike just after 4:00 P.M. Not bad for a 14.5 mile day hike.

It was one of my last hikes of my summer, and it proved to be a good one. Then again, you can't really go wrong at a place like Mount Rainier.