About SCA

Focus on the Wonderland

July 27, 2007
Susan Newman, Mount Rainier Recovery Intern

Trailwork Sign

Mount Rainier has 240 miles of maintained trails. 93 miles of which are part of one trail: The Wonderland Trail.

The renowned Wonderland Trail encircles Mount Rainier. The trail is a historic one, built around the turn of the century. It is one of the park’s most popular trails, though most people only hike a small section of the trail. Hiking the whole trail takes 10-14 days. It is the park’s most popular backcountry trail. The Wonderland Trail suffered tremendously from the floods of last fall. Because it Trail washout near Cougar Rock

circles the entire park, many sections of the trail are damaged, and hiking the whole trail is not being permitted this summer as a result. In some sections of the trail, bridges were taken out by the floodwaters, making the trail impassable. In other parts, whole sections of trail were washed away, leaving drop-offs where trail used to be. In these areas, it’s necessary to plan and construct a “reroute”--an entirely new trail to replace the old one that was washed out.

The Mount Rainier Recovery Corps is working alongside the park’s trail crew so that this great trail can be reopened.

There are two Wonderland Trail reroutes in progress. The first of these is between the Cougar Rock campground and Longmire. In this section of the trail, several portions of the trail were wiped out by the Nisqually River, which runs next to the trail in this section. For this reroute, the Recovery Corps is working alongside other Northwest Recovery Coalition parties to bring in volunteers to construct 2,000 feet of new trail here. Some large parties of volunteers have come in to help build this portion of the trail including REI employees, summer camp councilors-in-training, and in the coming months – Starbucks employees. This section has also received attention from the Northwest Youth Corps and an SCA High School Crew which spent one month previously helping with Katrina Recovery in Mississippi.

The second of the large Wonderland reroutes is in Stevens Canyon. Part of the Wonderland trail that snakes through Stevens Canyon was completely washed out by a landslide caused by the flooding. The reroute for this part of the trail will be 1,600 feet long. Work on this reroute is just beginning this coming week. Check out the events calendar to sign up to work on this reroute.
Margaret Dike works on a Wonderland reroute

Margaret Dike works on a Wonderland reroute

Not all the work needed on the Wonderland can be accomplished by manpower, however. Several of the destroyed bridges are to be replaced this coming week. But they’re not being built on site by SCA or the park’s Trails Crew. They’re being flown in!

Since the Wonderland Trail encircles the whole park, almost all of our worksites involve at least a small portion of the Wonderland. Backcountry trips to Indian Henry’s are on the Wonderland. Work at Narada Falls is on the Wonderland. Even snow trail clearing at Sunrise and meadow roving at Paradise involve work on the Wonderland Trail.

SCA is working hard to enable this treasure of a trail to reopen as a circuit next season. You can help out by signing up for the Wonderland Trail projects listed on the events calendar.

Trail map

Wonderland Trial profile

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