Skyscraper Mountain, Skyscraper Pass — Thursday, Aug. 21, 1997

Mount Rainier Area > NE - Sunrise/White River

Mount Rainier - An easy hike for an afternoon along the Wonderland trail. Vital Stats: 8 miles round trip from Sunrise to Skyscraper mountain, elevation gain about 1300 feet, no significant snow or creeks to cross, minimal bug problems. We started out from Sunrise at 3:15 along the Sourdough ridge trail, heading west (left) once reaching the ridge. The trail bumps along the ridge for about a mile, with minor ups and downs typical of any ridge. Lots of wildflowers still blooming along the trail, including lupine, red paintbrush, white and pink phlox, yellow five finger, purple littleflower and Davidson penstemmon, and parsnip (I think) plus others we couldn't find in the wildflower book. After about 1.5 miles the trail reaches Frozen Lake and a complicated 5 trail junction. We continued straight along the Wonderland trail through beautiful alpine meadows, dropping about 300 feet into upper Berkley basin and the junction with the Northern Loop trail. Continuing along the Wonderland, we crossed several pretty alpine creeks and finally started uphill on the other side of the basin towards Skyscraper Pass. Along this stretch was a breathtaking field of lupine and paintbrush. We reached the pass at 4:30 and headed straight up the south side of Skyscraper mountain, which has an obvious boot-beaten climber's path to the summit. A very gentle ascent, with only a very modest exposure along some cliffs at the very top. The view from the summit is spectacular, similar to that of nearby Mt. Fremont but including a tantalizing view of Moraine Park and Mystic Lake to the west. The Mountain, to the south, was mostly clouded up but we got glimpses of enormous broken icefields all over the northern flank. It may just be me, but the Mountain always seems bigger and more imposing when partly obscured by clouds like this. We didn't mind the clouds much because it just allowed us to focus more on the things we could see. Berkley basin looked green and inviting, Mystic Lake rippled in on-and-off sunshine, and the sun-streaks through the clouds (aka Jacob's Ladder) lit up the nearby Grand Park, Sluiskin and Old Desolate Mountains and Vernal Park in an ethereal way. The Fremont lookout was easily visible across the valley to the NE and looked empty. In fact, after levaing the 5-way trail junction we only saw 2 people until we returned to the junction. Very lonely country. We started down at 5:15 after a 1/2 hour on the summit, racing to beat the lowering and somewhat more threatening clouds which had begun to build up. Saw 8 marmots and dozens of squirrels and chipmunks but nothing bigger. Of all the hikes I've done out of Sunrise, I enjoyed this one most for the solitude, flowers and spectacular scenery. Marmot