Thursday, July 27, 2023
Today we headed up to Sunrise bright and early to beat the crowds for a hike to Skyscraper Pass and Berkeley Park.
When we parked at 7:40 the lot wasn’t even half full yet, so our plan to beat the crowds was successful. It helps that today was a weekday. It was a gorgeous day as we set off on the trail:
Because the trailhead is so high at 6,400′ we got great views pretty quickly:
Looking down on the basin where Shadow Lake sits. We’d be hiking through there tomorrow:
Always fun to see a pika!
We passed Frozen Lake:
That’s the trail up to Mt. Fremont. I would have liked to go up there, but we didn’t have time:
Continuing on towards Skyscraper Pass:
On the hillside above us we spotted a herd of mountain goats. Glacier Basin on the other side, so this could very well the same herd we saw on yesterday’s hike:
Skyscraper Pass is in that notch up to the right, with Skyscraper Peak to the right of it:
Looking down on Berkeley Park:
We spotted a marmot on the trail:
Heather in bloom:
Partridgefoot:
Paintbrush:
And then we reached Skyscraper Pass. There’s a user trail that goes up to the peak, but we didn’t have time:
The views from here are amazing:
Looking west:
Distant Mt. Fremont and its lookout:
Looking down into Berkeley Park. The distant patch of flat green is Grand Park:
After a break we headed back down from the pass. We saw another marmot:
At the junction we turned left and began the descent into Berkeley Park. Ahead you can see Skyscraper Pass and Peak:
Lots of wildflowers down here!
We saw a lot more wildflowers than last time we visited Berkeley Park in 2015. We didn’t go quite far enough on our last visit.
The wildflowers had been glorious, but the scene became downright idyllic once we reached the creek:
We were surprised to see a whole bunch of elephanthead in bloom down here:
There were a few muddy spots:
The trail started entering the trees and it was continuing to lose elevation, so we turned around and headed back up. We stopped a nice creekside spot for a brief break:
Hiking back out we saw another marmot:
The clouds were gathering, but the views to the north were still great:
Mt. Rainier, however, was totally hidden. Glad we got to see it earlier!
We were starting to see a whole bunch more people as we got closer to the trailhead. View of Sunrise from the trail, along with all the cars and people:
This was a long day but the views and the wildflowers were great!
Gaia stats: 9.25 miles, 1,830′ elevation gain
