September 26

Today was an awesome day. One of the best on the whole trail. From the first morning steps, the views were amazing. Rolling around through colorful meadows. Climbing higher until we reached glaciers and glacial melt rivers flowing down the hillsides, a 20' waterfall, and springs everywhere. We took a long lunch and an accidental nap in the sun. We climbed higher and higher, excited to see what this Knife's Edge" is all about. We caught our first glimpse of Mt. Rainier that grew and grew until we were overlooking a huge valley of glaciers leading eventually to the mountain. We took the hiker's route that is too steep for horses. The Knife's Edge was an insane, terrifying, beautiful trail. Who would build a trail like this!?!? But I'm so glad they did. We met a sobo section hiker who looked absolutely terrified coming off of the ridge, but we headed out along it. Snapping pictures. Taking in the view. Being scared out of our minds. Crying out in terror. Worrying that we wouldn't get across before the beautiful sunset turned to dusk. Eventually we made it across the two mile ridge and the trail turned a corner overlooking a huge green meadow with a view of Ranier behind. We stopped to look around just in time to see one of the most...majestic...sights we've ever seen. Huge, shaggy, white mountain goats were grazing in the meadow, meanwhile, a herd of about 20 Elk went running in a line along the meadow and stopped behind a stand of trees for shelter. One of those National Geographic moments for sure. It just needed some epic horn music. By the time we were headed down, the sun had set and we were slipping and sliding down the scree trail. We looked back at the ridge and two headlamps were looking at us in the distance. We started flashing our lights back and forth. Coo-Hees, but still not sure which of our fellow hikers it was.