Rose in Wonderland

Rose and I went on a mother daughter hike on Tuesday, July 28th! I love spending time outside with my kids, and it was so sweet to have one on one time with my Rose girl. 

We left home at 6am, drove 2 hours and 15 minutes to the trailhead (Rose drove 1 hour to Naches, where we switched drivers). We hiked for 7 hours. I only stopped my watch for a 30 minute lunch break, so we were out on the trail for 7.5 hours total--not a bad trade-off for 4.5 hours of round trip driving!

We did the Wonderland Trail to Indian Bar--one of my favorites. It was my 3rd time traversing this section of the trail, but my first time hiking it. The other two times I did a run-hike. It was a relief not to do any running this time, since there are 5,000 feet of uphill elevation gain on this trail and most of that happens in the first 4 miles. It was also way more fun hiking with another human than going solo. I like my alone time as much as the next introvert, but I love sharing beautiful places with my loved ones even more! This trail is also where I injured my ankle tendons last summer, so I was very happy to take it slower and walk with care. Hiking only took less than 2 hours longer than my run-hike on this trail last year!

Rose and I had a great time talking and laughing as well as being quiet out in nature together. I love my girl so much. Mt. Rainier was hidden behind a cloud the whole time, but the wildflowers were glorious! And it was gloriously cool and cloudy the whole time (50s and 60s) till the sun came out during the last mile or so. 

We walked through a ton of brand new spider webs on the way back. We laughed and shrieked while dancing around in disgust from walking through webs we didn't see, and from ducking and dodging webs we did see. We also saw one black and yellow garter snake that freaked us out a lot. The views and the flowers and the quality time with my daughter were wonderful! We got home at 6:40pm after a stop at Panda Express for dinner in Yakima.

It was a memorable 12.5 hours! Our legs were sore for the next few days!

Here are 70 pictures from our hike. I tried, but I couldn't narrow it down any more than 70. I'll keep captions to a minimum because this is a lot and I'm tired:

Most of the mountain heather was past its prime with brownish husks instead of flowers, so I appreciated this clump of happy pink heather.

That gray rocky area on the right in the distance is Indian Bar.

Arriving at Indian Bar.

This bridge is always a rush, with the powerful loud gushing water underneath.

I propped my phone on a rock and used my camera remote to take a few quick pictures before we started the bike back, and even though I was the one pushing the remote trigger, I kept posing weird! Haha, let's say I was delirious from lots of hiking and beauty all mixed together.

I zoomed in and cropped this picture because it was so ridiculous! We are awesome. We laughed till our abs cramped and tears flowed at our weird picture!

There was some trail maintenance going on. These workers had armloads of bags that they filled with heavy rocks and dirt to help with their trail upkeep.

This is a newly finished set of trail steps. Farther along the trail, we saw the piles of wood ready to make more of these stairs.

Some of the big bags, full of rocks...and crushing the delicate alpine meadow!! As much as I'd like to believe that trails just appear, I know they take careful consistent maintenance. I think there's a lesson in there.

Bright magenta paintbrush flowers are my favorite, but I also love the blue lupines. Rose and I decided that the contrasting colors were why we loved these flowers.

Mt. Rainier is behind that low cloud. Trust me.

On the hike back, I kept stopping to take pictures of the gorgeous flowers, so Rose got ahead of me. She also prefers to power walk uphill and then take a break to catch her breath, while I prefer a slow and steady climb with pauses for pictures. We stayed together pretty well in spite of our uphill preferences, and agreed we made pretty good hiking buddies.

I love hiking along this ridgeline: it feels like the top of the world!

Blue sky!

The evergreens were massive and peaceful and wise.

The Nickel Creek single log bridge was out, so we balanced our way across the water on wobbly wet rocks.

Finished in the sun!