The pink alpenglow of sunset near St. Andrews Park. The sound of frogs at twilight near Mystic Lake. The way the dew on delicate white blossoms glows at dawn near Indian Bar.

These are some of Mount Rainier's secrets. Those who come to know them have followed the path to enlightenment.

It's called the Wonderland Trail.

The challenging, 93-mile loop winds through dense forest, spacious parks and alpine gardens smelling of lupine and tree sap. It climbs up out of river valleys to foothill ridgetops offering unequaled views of the peak's glaciers.

"It is probably the best way to really get in touch with the park," said ranger Rick Kirschner, who supervises the backcountry staff on the national park's west side. "You're getting close contact with the trees, the plants, the animals, the rivers and all the ups and downs."

Completed in 1915, the Wonderland Trail connected and refined natives' byways and prospectors' trails. Pioneering hikers blazed the missing links. The name first appeared around 1920.

Rangers estimate that between 1,000 and 1,500 people try to hike the entire trail in a typical year. As many as 40 percent who try it don't complete the challenging journey.

"People come here expecting to do this hike, and they come back with their tails dragging," Kirschner said. "We get a lot of folks, especially from back east, who come and they're not really in shape for being in the mountains. They think, well, 100 miles or whatever is not a big deal."

Most hikers need 10 to 14 days to complete the trek. Many set out with bulging backpacks weighing 80 pounds or more.

Once they have their overnight permits, backpackers can hop on the trail at any point and head in either direction. Many travel clockwise out of Longmire.

Backpackers rarely have the trail to themselves. Many sections are popular with light-traveling day trippers.

On a clear spring day, hikers Cindy Arnold and Bas VanSteensel picked their way along a portion of the trail above Longmire. The former New Yorkers moved to Seattle a year ago and were on their first visit to the national park.

"There's a joke that Mount Rainier isn't really real - it's an airbrushed backdrop," Arnold said. "So we had to come and find out."

The peak was real, but the couple needed faith to believe there really was a trail beneath several feet of snow. The late spring blanket, swept by chill breezes from meltwater creeks, made the trail 20 degrees cooler than the nearby road.

Snow is a lingering annoyance for many itching to hit the Wonderland Trail. Shaded sections often hide under snow until late July, forcing backpackers to wade through slush.

For those wanting a snow-free experience, "Basically, you're looking at July, August and September," said trails foreman Carl Fabiani.

The trail climbs from Longmire toward Indian Henry's Hunting Ground. The meadow, former site of an overnight shelter, is one of several spots where camping is no longer permitted.

Today, backpackers pitch their tents at any of 17 established backcountry camps and four drive-in campgrounds just off the trail.

The trail drops from Indian Henry's meadow to a suspension bridge stretched across the wide gorge of angry, brown Tahoma Creek.

Beyond the creek, Wonderland Trail hikers begin to find some solitude.

Since Westside Road washed out in 1990, day hikers no longer have easy access to scenic points such as Emerald Ridge, St. Andrews Park and Klapatche Park.

By the time backpackers who started at Longmire reach camp at the South Mowich River, they have covered six of the trail's rippled ridges, climbing 7,985 feet and descending 8,136 more.

Much more is to come.

Hikers who cover all the trail's ups and downs gain and lose 22,786 feet of elevation by one estimate - enough to climb the mountain 2 1/2 times.

 "This isn't a trail that gives you a lot of leisurely flat time," writer Bruce Barcott said. "It's just a big series of W's that never end."

In 1995, while researching his book "The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier," Barcott set out alone on the trail from Longmire a week after Labor Day .

"I figured I'd do it in 14 hardy days and come in all grubby and unshaven, walking into the National Park Inn, announcing I'd just hiked the Wonderland Trail and ordering a steak," Barcott recalled from his home in Seattle.

Instead, nature ordered up a menu of cold rain. After four wet days, three chilly nights and 35 miles on the muddy trail, Barcott was near Mowich Lake, and nearly delusional.

"I started getting the early signs of hypothermia about the time I hit Golden Lakes," he said. "By the time I hit Mowich, basically all my equipment was soaked."

He called it quits and caught a ride home.

From Mowich Lake, the trail climbs to 5,100-foot Ipsut Pass then descends to 2,320-foot Ipsut Creek Campground, the low point. Near here, backpackers often share the trail with hikers spilling in from the Carbon River entrance.

The trail follows the Carbon River to another suspension bridge. Beyond, it skirts the towering snouts of the Carbon and Winthrop glaciers and the flat mirror of Mystic Lake as it crosses below the mountain's avalanche-scarred north face.

The trail works its way up and over 6,700-foot Skyscraper Pass. As hikers travel east, scrubby trees creep higher up the mountainsides.

Meadows and ridge crests become drier and support fewer plant species. Clear skies are more common.

The trail skirts Sunrise, the visitor center in the park's northeast corner.

Many trail hikers take advantage of the proximity to grab a cheeseburger at the restaurant's grill.

From Sunrise, the trail drops more than 2,000 feet in 31/2 miles to White River Campground. Both areas are accessible by car, allowing backpackers to meet friends or restock supplies.

A gap in the trail lurks beyond the campground, forcing hikers onto a road for 1 1/2 miles. Crews completing the trail's missing link built about 2,000 feet of trail last year and hope to add 6,000 feet this summer.

Hikers escape the road at Fryingpan Creek and head south to skirt the mountain's east side. Switchbacks take them to 5,900-foot Summerland, a backcountry meadow surrounded by rugged peaks, including 11,138-foot Little Tahoma.

Equally stunning Indian Bar sits 4 1/2 miles to the south. Herds of mountain goats often graze near both camps.

Between the two lies 6,750-foot Panhandle Gap, highest spot on the trail. Here, what passes for a path is so often snowbound that small pyramids of rock called cairns mark the way.

Ranger Debbie Brenchley, who supervises the backcountry staff on the park's east side, plowed through 8 inches of fresh snow when she hiked this section of the trail in the fall of 1998.

"I couldn't see the cairns anymore. They were buried," Brenchley said. "But I was a Summerland ranger for two years."

She knew the way by heart and finished her 93-mile trip in 5 1/2 days. Brenchley's pace was fast, but it's far off the Wonderland speed record. The unofficial mark was set in 1990 by a seasonal ranger who jogged the trail in 27 hours, 56 minutes.

The speed tradition - although frowned upon by safety-minded park officials - is kept alive almost every year by a loose group of Northwest runners who jog the entire trail over three days.

Judy Runge of Edgewood saw the runners while hiking with Sharon Romero of University Place in 1998 on the ridge south of Indian Bar. The pair were halfway through a three-year plan in which they divided the Wonderland Trail into segments and attacked them one per year.

While Runge and Romero were walking the ridge, 19 runners jogged past them.

"They were on the last day of a three-day runaround," Runge recalled. "And it was taking us three years."

From the ridge, the trail zigzags down to Nickel Creek and continues to Box Canyon, a popular scenic pullover on the Stevens Canyon highway.

The stop marks the end of Wonderland solitude.

Between Box Canyon and Longmire, the trail is rarely far from a road or crowd.

The trail climbs westward up Stevens Canyon directly across from the highway. It passes Martha Falls and skirts popular Reflection Lakes before descending to Narada Falls.

Day hikers crowd the trail as it parallels the Paradise River down to 205-site Cougar Rock Campground near the meandering Nisqually River. Bridges made of single logs bounce with each step as people walk above the Nisqually's milky channels.

The trail continues another 1.4 miles through dense forests back to the busy hiking center at Longmire, where many began their Wonderland adventure. By trail's end, the weary hikers often straggle in tired, sore and wet.

Some vow never to attempt such a difficult journey again.

Longtime Rainier hiker Bronka Sundstrom set off with several friends to hike the entire Wonderland Trail in the mid-1970s. Cold rain drenched the party, forcing them to turn back after five days. The extra water made Sundstrom's pack weigh 90 pounds - roughly her own weight.

"When we came back, I started to spit up blood," she recalled. "I would never go on a hike for four or five days in Washington again. I learned my lesson."

Others learn that they picked hiking companions who drove them crazy after two weeks of close contact, said guidebook author Bette Filley.

"I've known of couples and friends who come off the trail and they're not speaking," Filley said. But for others, the sights encountered along the journey outweigh the pain of aching muscles, blistered feet or broken friendships. "I think the Wonderland Trail is by far the most picturesque trail in the United States," said University Place's Pat O'Connor.

The retired Army chief warrant officer and avid hiker walked the trail in 1991 and again in '94. And if the eyes are rewarded, so is a hiker's confidence.

"You feel like you've done something successful," O'Connor said. "You've committed yourself to a long hike, and you feel rewarded."

(Published June 27, 1999)