Wonderland Trail hike, day #3. I was very cold last night and didn't sleep very well. We hit the trail at 8:15am with a beautiful climb up to Skyscraper Pass. Beautiful blue sky! We saw goats hanging out on the side of Skyscraper Mountain and one up above us on the pass. We had our first snow crossing of the trip on the north side of Skyscraper Pass. It was fairly steep but a nice path was trampled in the snow and it was easy going. Just as we got over the pass, clouds rolled in and swallowed Skyscraper Mountain. We descended down into Berkeley Park and the blue skies stayed with us. So beautiful. We saw marmots lounging in the sun. We saw a cinnamon colored bear down in a meadow near the Northern Loop Trail. We met a couple of hikers doing the trail also, although they were all going counter-clockwise. One was a character of a man from Alaska. He had troubles getting started because of a boot problem but was ready to go. He looked a little like Santa. We met another guy who was trying to go about 20 miles a day. Too fast! We hiked into Sunrise - cheating just a bit by taking the Park Service road into Sunrise instead of going all the way down through Sunrise camp. Sunrise was so full of people! It was a bit shocking to me that in 2 1/2 days I was already accustomed to the wilderness instead of being around so many people. We used the flushing toilets and I used SO. MUCH. toilet paper and washed my hands with running water. We had lunch - bacon hamburgers with chips and of course a Wonderland Trail IPA. Dessert was snickers bars and then a quick 2. 6 miles downhill to the White River campground. We set up camp and then NATHAN and VINCE rolled in with clean clothes and food resupply. They got a camp site near ours and Vince brought us yummy food and fresh fruit and BLUE MOON! We had a leisurely evening around camp with my boys and even attended the ranger talk at the campfire circle. We walked down to the river and Nate built a couple of very impressive and helpful cairns. Today was a really good day. Miles hiked = 7.5. Total miles hiked = 24.1. Beers drunk = 4
