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Trip Report

Glacier Basin — Friday, Jul. 8, 2022

Mount Rainier Area > NE - Sunrise/White River
Early morning at Glacier Basin

We got to the White River entrance of the park just after noon on Friday. There was no line at the entrance, but the White River Campground day use parking lot was full, with many cars parked along the road. We were lucky and found a parking spot when a group towing a trailer left us with two spots to pick from.

Toilets at the trailhead were clean but had no soap. The White River Campground looks operational, but a couple of the loops were closed for tree removal. We had lunch in the day use area and set out at 1pm. The trail was in good condition, weather was partly cloudy. For the amount of cars we saw, the trail was not too crowded (maybe they took the fork for the Emmons Moraine Trail which we skipped?). There were loads of bugs from the beginning all the way to the Glacier Basin camp; every time we stopped for a break, bugs would land on us.

The trail starts to sees some consistent snow around the last .5 miles into the camp, but there was a pretty consistent boot pack all the way. There are a couple of small trees that have fallen across the trail, the last one right before the entrance to the Glacier Basin camp.

Like the previous trip report mentioned, the Glacier Basin camp was mostly snow covered (and mostly pretty hilly piles of snow too). There are a few dryish spots to be found in the group site. We initially thought of pitching our tent on some snow in Site #1 but discovered human poop and used tp in a nearby tree well.

There is a sign for toilets at the entrance to the camp. They're a little bit of a walk away through snow and on this path the boot pack disappears in places. We were a little skeptical, but eventually found the toilets hidden behind some trees.

We were partially hoping to see some bears like some of the previous trip reports, but the only mammals we saw was a hoary marmot in Glacier Basin and a handful of chipmunks and squirrels.

It took us two hours to head back down the next morning. We encountered loads of skiiers and mountaineers on the way up and more day hikers the closer we got to the trailhead.

Toilets at the Glacier Basin camp
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