Mowich Lake

A backpacker descending from Panhandle Gap on the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.

5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail

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By Michael Lanza

There are many good reasons the 93-mile Wonderland Trail encircling Washington’s Mount Rainier ranks among the most popular backpacking trips in the country. And yet, backpackers who’ve never attempted this loop around the third-highest peak in the Lower 48 may have questions about what it’s like. If you have not hiked all or part of the Wonderland Trail, read on to learn more about why you should—and perhaps learn some myth-busting truths about this iconic and challenging trail.

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A backpacker in the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park.

America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips

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By Michael Lanza

What makes for a great backpacking trip? Certainly top-shelf scenery is mandatory. An element of adventurousness enhances a hike, in my eyes. While there’s definitely something inspirational about a big walk in the wild, some of the finest trips in the country can be done in a few days and half of the hikes on this list are under 50 miles. Another factor that truly matters is a wilderness experience: All 10 are in national parks or wilderness areas.

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A backpacker descending toward Granite Creek on the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.

Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail—A Photo Gallery

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By Michael Lanza

On the first afternoon of a five-day, late-summer backpacking trip covering much of the 93-mile Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier, two friends and I were making a long ascent through meadows bursting with lupine when we spotted two mountain goats staring at us from rocks partly hidden by bushes—and within seconds, we counted nine goats. Not much later, the morning fog finally lifted, revealing Mount Rainier in all its glory, a vast mountainside of ice and snow rising nearly 8,000 feet above us. Crossing endless wildflower meadows in warm sunshine, a light breeze, and just about perfect hiking temperatures, we reached Panhandle Gap at 6,750 feet—the highest point on the Wonderland—with its expansive view of The Mountain. Below us, at least 18 mountain goats grazed in a flat meadow carpeted in green grass.

And that anecdote encapsulates scenes that occurred daily on the Wonderland Trail.

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A backpacker on the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.

American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail

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By Michael Lanza “Bear!” Todd calls this out to me and points toward a meadow maybe 200 yards off—but I glance up a moment too late and the black bear has already disappeared into the dense forest. “It was a big one,” Todd says. We’re hiking along the crest of the Cowlitz Divide on the southeast side of Mount Rainier …

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My kids in Spray Park, Mount Rainier National Park.

Video: Backpacking Mount Rainier National Park

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By Michael Lanza

Mount Rainier National Park presents a multitude of excellent backpacking options. But one that encapsulates the experience well, shows off some of the park’s highlight views, glaciers, and wildflower meadows, and can be knocked off in a weekend is the traverse from Mowich Lake to Sunrise. Hiking below Rainier’s north face makes it look so impossibly big it seems unreal, rising 8,000 to 11,000 vertical feet above hikers on trails. Few North American peaks have visible relief of two vertical miles. You naturally react as you might to a full-blown, heat stroke-induced hallucination: Compelled to believe your eyes, you nonetheless struggle with the nagging intuition that the delicate fruit that is your frontal lobe has spoiled badly in the heat.

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