Beautiful day and hike. Got there about 7:15 am,10-15 parking spots still available. Wildflowers blooming, maybe a week before they will be in full bloom near Glacier Basin. Not too crowded early. Wonderful hike!

FYI, met couple trying to get to Mt. Ruth using Emmons Moraine trail. Couple could not complete loop beyond where trail was maintained due to significant overgrowth.  

It was a perfect day. Not too hot, and remarkably few bugs. I started on the trail just before 9 AM and the parking lot at White River still had space (nice to be able to go on a weekday). The Glacier Basin trail is in great shape, and I appreciate its very steady climb. Lots of wildflowers blooming. I don't know their names, but Outside Nancy's report from the same day gives a comprehensive list.

The maintained trail doesn't continue very far past Glacier Basin Camp, and although the views are great there, I wanted to see more terrain. The trail was easy to follow, and I continued about 3/4 mile more to 6600 feet elevation. I saw 4 climbing parties going up, and a pair of laid-back day hikers who went farther than I did.

On the way back I took the spur to the Emmons Moraine Trail. Will cover that in a separate report. Total including the spur was 9.8 miles and 2900 feet of climb.

We had a fantastic day hiking to Glacier Basin! The lot was 3/4 full when we pulled in just after 9:00 AM.  It was 58 degrees with clear blue skies.  The perfect conditions for hiking! The entire trail was dry and hard packed except a couple small stream crossings.  Our group of 14 had the trail entirely to ourselves all the way to the basin.  Wildflowers are on full display, we saw vanilla leaf, queens cup, corral root, yellow and magenta monkey pod, blue bells, pearly everlasting, penstemon, paint brush, lousewort, sagifrax, thistle, cusick speedwell, shooting stars, Columbine and cow parsley. We arrived at the basin just before noon and wound our way down to the boulders in the river bed and spread out for a lunch break scattered among the boulders. A nice north breeze was coming down the mountain to keep things cool.  A few hikers were further up the basin toward InterGlacier and several groups behind us on the trail started arriving near Glacier Basin Camp when we started down at 12:45. Wildlife sightings were limited to a couple frogs, chipmunks and a few bird species were heard calling. The few bugs we encountered were not really bothersome. We passed one large group of 12 climbers and 3 smaller groups of 2 headed up to InterGlacier and Camp Sherman for Mt Rainier summit attempts in a couple days.  We took the side spur over to the Emmons Glacier overlook trail and found more eye catching views of the emerald green pond/lake, the White River headwaters coming out of the glacier moraine and a different view of Mt Rainier.  Many more day hikers were just starting out when we arrived back at the White River Camp Ground at 2:45.  Our out & back hike with the side spur was 8 miles with 1,750’ gain. Another fantastic day out in nature with friends.   

We set out with a small Scout group from Sunrise trailhead and hiked via Frozen Lake to Granite Creek, with a quick detour up Skyscraper Peak. The views were totally worth the roughly half mile climb. We heard that some snowfields were still present near Shadow Lake and that crews were working to clear trails on that southern portion of the Sunrise Loop. We only crossed one small snowfield, just before Skyscraper, which was on a steep, narrow ledge, but had some good kick steps which made it navigable for our whole crew whether in boots or trail runners.

Day 2 took us from Granite Creek back to Frozen Lake and the up the ridge to 1st and 2nd Burroughs en route to Glacier Basin. There were four small snowfields to cross on the ridge, but they didn’t pose a problem for us or for the several families of day hikers we saw on the trail. The hike up Burroughs was steeper than it looked on the map, but the hike down the other side into Glacier Basin was even steeper. I’d definitely recommend trekking poles for this one. Don’t be fooled by your maps: the last half mile in to Glacier Basin campground is all uphill. The campground itself is beautiful. A rushing river close by, a pond (we found frogs and salamanders), loads of marmots, and some wildflowers. No view of Mt. Rainier, but we’d enjoyed those much of the rest of the hike.

Day 3 we hiked from Glacier Basin to White River Ranger Station, with a short detour up the Emmons Moraine trail for some epic views of the mountain. The waterfalls along the way made the last few miles with packs delightful. To complete the loop, we dropped packs and sent a few fast hikers up the trail to Sunrise to grab our vehicle. That 3 mile hike was every bit as steep and challenging as we’d expected, but there’s plenty of shade and even a waterfall about 2 miles in where we stopped to pour some water on our faces and cool off.

Gorgeous day to get up and see some of the old mining activity in what is now the protected national park.  So remote and forgotten.

But what was truly exciting to see was all the wildflowers and small wildlife! Everything was blooming.

Bugs were bad down lower near the creeks, but not bad up in the upper basin.