In the summer of 1980, Margie and I set out to walk the 100-mile Wonderland Trail that circles Mount Rainier. For ten days, we carried everything on our backs—food, cameras, shelter, and just enough determination to see us through. The Wonderland Trail led us through wildflower meadows, glacier basins, river crossings, and long, punishing climbs, gaining and losing more than 20,000 feet along the way. At the time, we didn’t think of it as an epic adventure. Looking back 45 years later that’s exactly what it was.
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Mount Rainier is more than a mountain. It dominates everything around it—physically and spiritually. Its glaciers spill into valleys carved over eons, and its presence is constant. No matter where you are on the trail, you feel it—watching, shaping the landscape, and quietly reminding you who is in charge.
Before we had met, both Margie and I stood on Rainier’s 14,410-foot summit. As we hiked the Wonderland Trail, I often found myself staring up at that same peak, trying to reconcile the memory. “Did I really stand on top of that?” I wasn’t sure anymore which was harder and which was more rewarding—the climb to the summit of Rainier or walking all the way around it.
A Different Era of Backpacking
It was a different world for backpackers in 1980.
Our packs weighed between 45 and 50 pounds—aluminum-frame Keltys loaded with gear that today would be considered excessive. But we got used to our packs, eventually developing a sense of oneness with them.
We dried much of our own food ahead of time—lightweight freeze-dried meals were just becoming available, but they were tasteless. Breakfast was hot cocoa and a chewy, homemade granola bar. Lunch was a Sailor Pilot Bread cracker covered with peanut butter or margarine squeezed out of a tube and some dried fruit.
We also wore heavy Danner leather boots, adding even more weight to the load. Camera gear alone added significant weight. We carried two Nikon 35mm SLRs loaded with Kodachrome slide film, along with a five-pound tripod strapped to the top of my pack. Photography was important, but it came at a cost.
One thing we didn’t carry was water or a filtration device. Having to filter your water simply wasn’t part of the conversation in those days. Clear streams flowed everywhere, straight from the mountain. We carried our tin Sierra Cups on our belts, dipping them into creeks and drinking deeply. Cold, clean, and delicious. And, on hot afternoons, we cooled ourselves by pouring that cold stream water over our heads. That gave us the shivers as it ran down our backs.
Having grown up in western Washington, I knew we had to be prepared for rain. Margie sewed each of us a set of Gore-Tex rain gear from Frostline kits. Other than using it for pillows, we never really needed the rain gear. No rain—not even a sprinkle during our entire trip—something almost unheard of in the Cascade Mountains, where rain can fall any month of the year and snow isn’t out of the question, even in June or July.
Into the Mountain’s Realm
From the beginning, the trail pulled us into another world.
On our first day, climbing above the Carbon Glacier, Margie wrote:
“The fog-enveloped surroundings disappeared into a vacuum of mystique… The trail—a soft bed of decaying pine needles.”
That sense of mystery stayed with us. Fog drifted through the trees. Waterfalls seemed to appear out of nowhere. The mountain revealed itself slowly, in fragments.
At times it didn’t feel entirely real.
“Nature welcomed us into her realm of mystery, of beauty, of forever yearning… The hiker is alone on a journey into timelessness.”
Those words captured something I felt but could never quite articulate.
The Rhythm of the Trail
Life on the Wonderland Trail settled into a rhythm—walk, climb, descend, repeat.
Each day brought new terrain. Dense forests in the lower elevations gave way to subalpine meadows bursting with wildflowers. Higher still, the landscape became stark and austere—rock, ice, and glacier.
The wildflowers, though, were unforgettable.
Meadows of lupine, paintbrush, avalanche lilies, and mountain heather stretched across the landscape. Margie described them as a “kaleidoscope of colors,” and that’s exactly what they were. They existed for only a brief window each summer, timed perfectly between snowmelt and the return of winter.
We didn’t rush through those gardens of color. You couldn’t.
The Hard Days
Not every moment was poetic.
Day three is the one I remember most clearly—and not fondly. We hiked 13.5 long miles to Summerland under a punishing hot sun, climbing relentlessly. Somewhere along the way, I developed a pinched nerve in my back. Every step hurt.
With a 50-pound pack, there’s no easy way out. You keep moving because stopping doesn’t solve anything. Margie captured the reality of it perfectly:
“You can’t stop halfway up a mountain. You must put one disciplined foot in front of the other.”
That day tested everything—strength, patience, and resolve. It was the kind of day that makes you question why you’re out there at all.
And yet, those are the days that define an experience like this.
A World of Small Wonders
Between the difficult miles were moments of quiet magic.
A marmot perched on a rock, watching us as if we had wandered into his domain uninvited. Deer grazing near camp at dusk. The distant bugle of elk echoing through the valleys.
We learned to notice everything.
“A butterfly kissing a flower… the flowers whispering in the breeze… the music of the roaring streams.”
These weren’t grand moments. They were small, fleeting, and easy to miss. But they became the fabric of the trip.
Life in Camp
Camp life was simple and, at times, uncomfortable.
Our tent, a 5-pound Swedish design with a single center pole, offered just enough shelter. Our heavy down sleeping bags were barely insulated from the hard ground by thin ensolite pads. Food was functional, not gourmet—though we managed some creativity with dried ingredients. Dinner was often ramen noodles and canned chicken or tuna cooked over our lightweight Svea Stove powered by white gas. We carried a liter of white gas, hoping that we wouldn’t run out. Fortunately, we didn’t.
And then there were the bugs.
Mosquitoes and biting flies could turn a peaceful campsite into a battlefield. At Maple Creek, we retreated into the tent just to escape them, eating dinner inside while they swarmed outside. All of it became part of the story.
A Rest Day at Summerland
We took a rest day at Summerland, surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery on the trail.
It was a chance to recover physically from my pinched nerve, but also to slow down and absorb where we were. Margie spent the day washing clothes in cold mountain water, drying them in the sun, and simply sitting in the meadow, writing poetry and communing with Nature.
I wandered with my cameras, photographing what I could never fully capture.
The times of quiet reflection mattered as much as the miles.
A Distant Eruption
Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, and we thought we would probably be unaffected by the eruption. Unbeknownst to us at the time, Mount St. Helens erupted again while we were on the trail.
We didn’t learn about it until days later. The prevailing winds carried most of the ash eastward, so we were largely unaffected, though the southern skies held a faint haze.
It was a reminder that the landscape we were walking through was still alive, still changing.
The Final Miles
By the last few days, fatigue had set in—but so had a quiet determination that we were committed to finishing what we had set out to do.
The final stretch out of Golden Lakes was long—over 16 miles—but we pushed through, even though we knew we were leaving an adventure that had dramatically impacted our lives. Perhaps we were driven by the anticipation of a warm shower, a home-cooked meal, and a soft bed. Those physical pleasures of life seem to greet us at the end of every backpack trip. A gentle reminder that today’s busy world calls us home—until the next adventure summons. When we finally reached Ipsut Creek, where we had started, our ten-day journey came to an abrupt finish—it just ended. Just like that, it was over.
What Remains
Shortly after the trip, we wrote an article for the Tacoma News Tribune, Margie’s writing and my photography. They paid us $200—a small fortune at the time. I’ve lost the original article over the years, but Margie’s journal remains.
In many ways, it’s better.
It holds the day-to-day emotions, the struggles, the beauty, and the quiet reflections that never would have made it into a newspaper story.
That trip started us on a different journey—writing and photography for many other magazines and newspapers.
What I remember most now isn’t the mileage or the elevation gain. It’s the feeling of being immersed in something timeless. The sense that, for a brief period, we were fully present in, and an integral part of, the natural world.
Margie wrote near the end:
“Our visual communion with Nature came to an abrupt end… All is a memory now… the communion of two people walking but a small segment of their path to eternity… together.”
Even after 45 years, that journey hasn’t really ended. It lives on—in memories, photographs, in words, and in the quiet understanding that experiences like this one become part of who you are.
Today, life has a way of getting in the way. But on the Wonderland Trail, for a little while, nothing else mattered.
Much of this story is preserved thanks to Margie’s daily journal, written along the trail in 1980—capturing moments I would have otherwise forgotten.
See Jeff’s previous articles at the Substack Archive.
See more of Jeff’s photography at his Mount Rainier National Park Website.
Jeff Goulden is a nature, landscape, wildlife photographer and writer based in Flagstaff, Arizona. His work has appeared in Audubon, National Geographic, Nature Conservancy, Wilderness Society and other publications.
See more of Jeff's photography at www.JeffGouldenPhotography.com. Downloads are available at Getty Images. Selected fine art prints and other unique photo products are available at Fine Art America.
Wow. Just beautiful, the photos, the sentiment. You two are so beautiful and talented. Thank you for sharing with us.
It’s a privilege to see your eloquent reflections and equally eloquent photos, Jeff! I well-remember those days of weighty packs and the joys of enduring challenges to bodies and brains that made us better people for having them.