Friday, July 28, 2023
We headed back up to Sunrise today to do the Burroughs Mountain hike.
We arrived at Sunrise at 7:20 and got our stuff together. This Clark’s Nutcracker watched from the nearby rooftop:
I cannot believe this even needs to be said. Who would keep stuffing trash into an overflowing trash can?
First of many views of Mt. Rainier we would have today:
Off we go:
We soon reached Shadow Lake:
Then we started climbing up:
Looking back:
A little viewpoint with a great view:
A good view of Emmons Moraine:
We were down there two days ago, hiking up towards Glacier Basin:
Onwards:
At this point in the summer there was no snow, ice, or avalanche hazards:
We got a good view down into Glacier Basin. However all that green you see in the photo below was above the point where we hiked to two days ago. We had no idea there were all those meadows higher up:
Burroughs Mountain has three summits. That flat ridge below is Second Burroughs:
Tiny little lupine:
Hiking across First Burroughs, with Second Burroughs straight ahead:
At this junction we headed toward Second Burroughs. Later we’d return to this spot and head down to Frozen Lake to loop back to our car:
Looking down on where we were yesterday:
A wide pano of the three shots above:
Oh hey, there’s the mountain goats again!
Almost to the top of Second Burroughs:
Made it!
Great view of Mt. Rainier, with Glacier Basin and the Inter Fork down below on the left:
We stopped to take a break and were accosted by golden-mantled ground squirrels who wanted our food. This is what happens when hikers feed the wildlife. They become aggressive to other hikers. They were cute, but we did not feed them:
View over to Third Burroughs, where we were headed next:
Time to descend Second Burroughs. That’s Skyscraper Peak at center:
Even at this high elevation we saw some scattered wildflowers:
View of distant Grand Park:
Mt. Fremont and its fire lookout:
Skyscraper Pass, Grand Park, and Mt. Fremont:
Descending Second Burroughs on our way to Third:
Time to start climbing again:
The view from Third Burroughs:
Looking west:
I think that lake down there is Mystic Lake, which is along the Wonderland Trail:
Looking northwest:
Looking north at Skyscraper Peak and Mt. Fremont:
Mt. Fremont:
Zoomed in on Skyscraper Peak, with Grand Park behind and many glorious mountains beyond:
Looking northwest with Frozen Lake visible below:
Looking back to the east at Second Burroughs, where we just came from:
Looking southeast:
Some hardy penstemon and other flowers blooming up here:
Up here we didn’t have the golden-mantled ground squirrels to deal with, but some yellow pine chipmunks showed up:
After a break, we turned and headed back down:
Back on Second Burroughs we scouted out this interesting rock formation around a bench we hadn’t seen the first time around:
Descending the north side of First Burroughs down to Frozen Lake:
Looking back up the trail:
From Frozen Lake we turned south onto the Wonderland Trail:
Another marmot:
Then we hopped onto the old service road that would take us back to the parking lot:
We were pretty footsore and tired by this point, but we perked up when saw a mama bear and her cub cross the road ahead of us:
We approached cautiously and made our presence known, but the two were busy looking for food on the slope above the road and basically ignored us:
Yet more wildflowers:
We were very tired when we got back to the car, but we were glad we did this hike!
Gaia stats: 9.4 miles, 2,315′ elevation gain
