From the White River campground the trail is mostly through forest but with some great breakout points along the way with views of Mount Rainier, Little Tahoma, the White River and the Emmons Moraine. The trail is in very good condition with mostly soft tread. There were a few places when we were coming back down where there was some slippage on loose gravel. The trail is a steady gain all the way to the basin.
Along with the views along the trail there were numerous streams to cross on footbridges, over culverts or running across the path but no problem keeping our boots dry. The streams were usually had accompanying small waterfalls and were good place to catch a cool breeze.
The wildflowers were abundant: phlox, paintbrush, both red and yellow monkeyflower, false hellebore, queen's cup, glacier lily, wild strawberry, stonecrop, cow parsnip, penstemon and glacier lilies.
Once at the basin, the landscape opens up. Except for the trees in the campground, the view is nearly 360 degrees. We had our lunch there and then wandered around the area for photos. There lots of climbing parties camped there and we watched climbers going up to and returning from the mountain. It seemed like the climbers outnumbered the hikers. Overall, on our hike the trail was not heavily traveled.
On our return trip we went a little ways on the Emmons Glacier Trail up to the ridge of the moraine for views of the glacier and the unnamed emerald green lake. The only sketchy part of the hike was coming down loose gravel and powdery dirt on the moraine above the footbridge over the Inter Fork. There were also a couple rocks that jutted out from the side of the trail that required some well- placed feet and balance.
We had three different tracking methods and all of them recorded more distance than various maps and GPS indicated, mostly between 7 to a bit over 8 miles.
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