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Day 7 (Sat, 8/2). 2nd night at Summerland.  Goat Island Mountain Day Hike.    6 miles with  2170ft gain/loss

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0500 woke up.   I woke up around 1130pm and checked for any climbers on the Mt.   I did not see any or my eye sites were not good enough.    Just after 0500, we could see some climbers on both DC and Edmonds routes.    My pictures did not come out.   I needed to learn how to take pictures at dark.

A black bear walked through in the distance around 0640.  It was in and out of the woods, so it was difficult to take a picture.    On the previous day,  a backpacker mentioned that a bear went through around 0630.    It was probably the same bear.

Most of us went for the Goat Island mountain dayhike.   We needed to go back down to Pan Handle creek.   After crossing the 2nd log bridge and about 100 ft,   headed north trying to follow a game trail.     A Ranger on the previous day  gave us some direction.  Bushwhacking was not really bad but the bugs were really bad at some places.     When we got to the summit,  the thunderstorms just moved in and dumped on us some rain and hail for about 1-2 minutes.    Suzy's hair was electrified and needed to get off the crest as soon as possible.   As we descend,  rain stopped and was getting clear.    3 of us decided to head back up and walk on the ridge toward the Mt Rainer.    It was quite impressive looking at the Glacier up close and the Mt Rainier.    On the way back,   we dealt with heavy bushes and cliffed out a few times.    When we were bushwhacking, I dropped my GPS at some place.   It was almost impossible to find it back, so I gave it up.   I paid $100 for a used one back in 2011, and had good use of it since.   We ended up traversing back to the ridge that we went up and intercepted the trail near the spot we went up earlier.      Felt so good to be on the trail.     The others arrived back at Summerland about 20 minutes earlier.   On the way back up to Summerland,  I realized that we could travel further along the ridge (to avoid the cliffs) and came around to Summerland by staying high.   Well,  It was quite a bad experience, my lack of experience of securing things while bushwhacking,  and lack of understanding of the area.     The main thing was that all came back safely.   

Back at Summerland,  we relaxed for the next day.   Turned in around 2000 as usual.

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