Majestic Mount Rainier National Park
During our vacation in Seattle at the end of July, we rented a car and drove to Mount Rainier National Park, about 2-1/2 hours southeast of the city. Snowcapped even in summer, Mt. Rainier is the highest peak in the Cascade Range at 14,410 feet. The day we visited, the mountain was not only “out” but appeared to loom over the road. Just look at it, framed against a blue, blue sky. Magnificent!
We stopped at a pull-out along the highway to admire the view. The air was cool, and last winter’s deep snowfall, thanks to an extended chilly spring and summer, was still piled up along the road, making a mini-mountain in the foreground.
Quite a view on all sides…
…from the grand…
…to the small. The summer wildflowers that Mt. Rainier’s meadows are famous for had been delayed by the lingering snow and an unusually cool summer, we were told. While we missed the big show, we did see a lot of these tiny glacier lilies (Erythronium grandiflorum) poking up out of the snow.
After driving up to Sunrise Visitor Center and eating a picnic lunch in the warm sun, with snow all around our picnic table (yes, snow in July!), we drove on to Grove of the Patriarchs, an island of Douglas fir, cedar, and hemlock trees, some an incredible 1,000 years old, surrounded and protected from fire by the Ohanapecosh River.
From the grove, we hiked along the Ohanapecosh to thundering Silver Falls, swollen with snowmelt.
We stood and watched it tumble and roil for a while…
…and then it was time to head back. It was a short visit, but an enjoyable one. We felt lucky to have seen the mountain on such a beautiful, clear day.
Up next: A visit to Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, where we saw salmon swimming up the fish ladder. Click here to see the Seattle Japanese Garden.
All material © 2006-2011 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
I have been out there a couple of times and this is the best view I have seen of the mountain. Great shots Pam.
After the Texas summer you have endured, you and your family deserved this mountain break.
I am cooling down just looking at these photos but please, hold the snow for a bit longer. Glad you had time for family fun on this post fling expedition. Loved your two previous posts also.
I wanted to get out here in March when I visited Seattle, but it was too wet and cold still. Still want to go!
Ahh, I needed that! Killer “raging river” shot, too. What I also notice is how different the sun and sky appear in each of the places you’ve been travelling, escaping The Death Star.
Thanks for those beautiful cool pictures which I’m viewing on a day that is one of a long string of days under a heat advisory at Anahuac NWR. And my views have no water, just the dry beds of ponds and browning vegetation.
Hopefully I’ll get up that way next spring, if I get a volunteer job at a national wildlife refuge in Oregon. Or I may have time enough to get up there fom my job at Scramento NWR where I’ll be the late fall and most of the winter.
It looks like you really enjoyed your trip up the mountain. It’s too bad the weird spring weather delayed the wildflowers, what a bummer. I’ve never been to Sunrise, but last year when my son visited, we took him and his wife to Paradise, the town on the other side of Rainier. I posted about it here: http://bonneylassie.blogspot.com/2010/08/fertilizer-friday-taking-inspiration.html
What a nice trip! I so wanted to get up into those mountains we could see from everywhere in Seattle!
So refreshing as I hide from the 111 degree heat!