The hike was a lot longer and more difficult then we had been expecting. "Hey, it's only a couple of miles", we told ourselves, not knowing enough to take the elevation change into account. So up we went, with our one bottle of water and some maps. As we began to assent past the treeline, we kept looking back to admire the view and congratulate ourselves on how far we had come. But then we started spotting hikers way up above us, like stratospherically higher then we were. "That's not where we're going to go, is it?", we asked ourselves. "No, I think those are the really hard-core people who are going all the way to Camp Muir. We'll be up there someday, but we're not going up nearly that high today."
Later on, as we looked down from those stratospherically high trails, we wondered how much further we really did have to go.
At one point, a nice older couple saw us refilling our water bottle in a stream, and warned us against the bacteria found in all mountain streams, and they gave us some of their water. We didn't tell them we had already downed one bottle's worth of stream water. Fortunately, we never got sick. We'll prepare better next time.
The trail up split in two; you could take the longer route, which we did, or you could take the shorter route which went over a snowfield. We did see several people hiking on the snowfield; they had ice axes and other equipment necessary for climbing on snow, and we saw them practicing self-arrest. We are looking forward to getting some of that equipment and practicing next year.
Finally, during one of our umteenth rest breaks, a woman coming back down the trail gave us encouragement: "Just a few more minutes and it'll all be over, I promise!" she told us. We were way up on what I called the moonscape by this point: no vegetation or animal life whatsoever, just flat, dead-looking rocks. The lady's encouragement gave us the boost to keep going, and sure enough, a few more minutes brought us to the peak, where the trail turns back down the mountain, or you can take an adjoining trail up to the snowfield and on up to Camp Muir.
We sat and ate our lunch, amongst many other hearty hikers. It had been a beautiful, clear day all morning; now, as we were the closest we'd ever been to Mt. Rainier, banks of fog were rolling in. It was actually pretty cool; the fog covered the peak, but banks of it would cover and uncover different areas of the mountain, giving us thrilling glimpses of the face and glaciers.
The ascent had taken us four hours; it took us one hour to get back down to Paradise. On our way down we passed more and more people hiking up, and we could tell by how they dressed that many were not prepared to go even as high as we did. We congratulated ourselves more on how much of the mountain we had conquered.
Until we got to the visitor's center, and looked at the big 3-d solid map of the mountain: we had travelled perhaps one quarter of the way from Paradise to Camp Muir. I have to admit, that was a little discouraging. However, even if we don't make our goal next summer, we are both adamant that it won't be from lack of trying. We will take every opportunity we can to hike the Skyline Trail again, maybe next time hiking on snow, and getting the gear we need. We will hike to Camp Muir.
And one day, we will hike to the summit.
