Long-time Puget Sound residents are all too familiar with our annual gray and cloudy weather pattern leading up to high summer, known as “June Gloom” or “June-u-ary.” When the clouds parted briefly, it was time for my annual pilgrimage to Mowich Lake before the road opened. I knew I’d see very few people.
Originally named Crater Lake by geologist Bailey Willis, he’d mistakenly thought that the lake resulted from a volcano’s collapse. He later realized it was a tarn, a lake carved by glacial ice. It was renamed Mowich, the Chinook Jargon word for deer. Locals on the mountain’s north side (in Enumclaw, Buckley, and on the Muckleshoot Reservation, for example), can point out a giant deer (or elk head) etched in rock lying on the upper slopes of Ptarmigan Ridge across the North Mowich and Liberty Cap Glaciers. Historians think this is how the Mowich area got its name.
Willis worked for the Northern Pacific Railway, searching for coal seams that it hoped to extract and ship via rail to Tacoma and beyond. In 1883, he supervised construction of a trail, later named the Grindstone Trail, intended to attract tourists to the northwest side of the mountain. Willis later became a staunch advocate for designation of Mount Rainier as a national park. The mountain’s precipitous north wall, on which the successful American Everest Expedition trained in 1963, bears his 
name, the Willis Wall.
Remnants of the Grindstone Trail remain, offering a more direct and more pleasant route than walking the seven miles of road from the parking area to the lake. Volunteers that include now-retired long-time park trails foreman Carl Fabiani have restored three sections of the Grindstone that wind upslope through classic North Cascades mid-elevation forest, cutting the distance nearly in half. But with six feet of snow still on the ground, the trail was hard to find, even with the orange metal blazes on the trees. Using a combination of the trail and the road, I made it to Mowich Lake for “elevensies,” as the hobbits would say. Still completely frozen and snow-covered, thousands of melting dimples in shades of aquamarine and turquoise peppered the lake’s surface in a scene I’d never seen before.
Slogging the slushy road downhill to the car, I met a young couple in tennis shoes, shorts, and t-shirts huffing up the road. Winded, they asked, “Do you think we’ll make it to Tolmie Peak today?” Stifling a guffaw and managing to keep a straight face, I said, “Actually, it’s snowy the rest of the way up to the lake. I think finding the Tolmie Peak trail would be almost impossible. You’ll probably need to come back in August or September to visit the lookout.” They smiled, thanked me, and continued their slippery ascent.
On the next sunny June-u-ary day, I headed up the Carbon River road with hopes to get a peek at the lowest-lying glacier in the conterminous United States. Closed to motor vehicles at the park entrance, the road is perfect for walking and bicycling. It climbs about a thousand feet over five miles, a gradual 45-minute uphill bike ride to the
Ipsut Creek Camp. There the road intersects the Wonderland Trail, heading either southeast toward the Carbon Glacier and beyond, or southwest toward Ipsut Pass and Mowich Lake. While locking my bike at Ipsut Creek camp, I met a couple preparing to set off on a day hike. It turned out that one of them was enjoying a day off from his work on the Carbon River trail crew. Trail crew personnel are usually a good source for inside scoop on trail conditions and park gossip, and I had plenty of questions. He told me that the Carbon River crew hadn’t begun working until Memorial Day because of Covid-19, six or eight weeks later than usual. This put them behind schedule on maintenance and repairs, including replacing foot logs and other river crossings that wash out each winter. My newfound friend wondered aloud about the logic of the park’s issuance of Wonderland Trail permits while crews scrambled to make the trail safe for hikers.
Within a couple of miles, I came upon a perfect example of what the trail crew fellow had been talking about: a foot log knocked out of place by high water on the Carbon River, the crossing made impassable. In most years, the foot log would have been replaced by now and hikers could safely cross. I searched for another way across, but found nothing safe enough to try. I’d have to return later in the season to say hello to the glacier.
Old friends greeted me on the hike back to my bicycle. Red columbine, an early summer favorite of hummingbirds, grew in clumps on either side of the trail. Bumblebees try the columbine’s back door, snipping the ends of its spurs to sip the nectar.
Red alder catkins and newly sprouted leaves were everywhere. Alder’s root nodules combine with a bacterium to draw nitrogen from the air, making nitrogen compounds available in the soil for use by other organisms. Biologists call this process “nitrogen fixing.” After explaining the process on a field trip long ago, a student mused, “Red alder fixes nitrogen? How did it break in the first place?”
Closer to Ipsut Creek camp, Scouler’s corydalis grew in shady, damp spots alongside the trail. Corydalis is Greek for crested lark, and the plant received the name because of its resemblance to the bird. Botanist John Scouler accompanied David Douglas (Douglas fir, Douglas squirrel and many other namesakes) on some of his wanderings in the Pacific Northwest in the 1820s.
Ahead of me, I caught a glimpse of a banana slug crossing the trail at top speed. One of the slowest creatures on Earth, it tops out at 0.007 miles per hour. It’s always good to slow down and watch these one-footed, one-lunged marvels slime an inch or two of trail.
Back on my bicycle, I enjoyed the gradual downhill glide back to the car. I daydreamed about other trips that lie ahead: up to Sunrise on foot, before the road opens; to the end of the West Side road on bicycle; third Burroughs Mountain with the Silver Hummingbird; and maybe, the Wonderland Trail in September. I’m eager to hear about your outdoor adventures, too. Drop me a line or send photos of your latest trip. Remember, we’re in this—all of it—together. Until next time, keep your boots dry and your spirits high.