Emerald Ridge

Two posts in one day!  This is amazing.  We should all buy lottery tickets, because magic is happening.

These pictures are from last weekend's backpacking trip with AH.  We did two days and one night on the mountain to Emerald Ridge and parts of the Wonderland trail.  It was amazing.  The trail we took to connect us to the Wonderland trail was not maintained.  This is a bit of an understatement.  There had been a landslide and about 50 feet of the trail was washed out.  The choices were to go through the very fast and cold river or bushwhack through the landslide.  We bushwhacked and it was hard.  There were times we had to take off our packs and push them ahead of us because we were ducking under trees and tree roots.  It was also very, very steep and it was very important to not slide down into the river. Half an hour later we were back on the trail.  This was the "easy" part.  We were hooking up to the Wonderland trail where we had 2.8 miles and 3000 feet of elevation gain to challenge us.  It was a challenge, but we made it to the top and the simply amazing views of the mountain and the glaciers.

Night was spent at the South Puyallup River campsite near the Puyallup River.  It was beautiful and I wish I had gotten out of the tent to look at the stars, but sometimes you are tired and in a sleeping bag and there you will remain.

Many more pictures are here.