Wilderness Wandering

August 9, 2024

We left Crater Lake mid morning and spent the better part of the day driving through Oregon into Washington. We made a lunch stop in Eugene, the hometown of my bestie, Valerie.  About 4 PM we were within an hour of Rainier without a camping spot. Tim suggested I look for a state campground and I found Ike Kinswa State Park. The sign said the campground was full, but we drove in anyway and put on our pathetic faces and asked the Ranger “Is there any chance for a campsite for 1 night?” He said someone had checked out early and he had one spot for the night. We thankfully took it. 

The campground was situated on a lake and also had 2 rivers near by. There were lots of people with boats, and jet skies. The campground was densely green with secluded sites, AND bathrooms with lovely showers and outlets! Our site even had water and electric! Camping heaven!

We had dinner, and went for a walk by the lake. Happily, there was a little internet connectivity, so I got online at 6:55 PM hoping to score a Mt. Rainier Day Pass for the next day. I got the reservation in the cart, but there wasn’t enough cell service for the credit card to process. Very frustrating. I lost the reservation. I tried again 10 minutes later, but it said they were sold out. I went and showered and just for kicks checked once more to see if there was any availability. There were 4 spots for 1 PM, so I tried again and the sale went through! Yay! We don’t have to get up at 4:30 AM tomorrow!

August 10, 2024

A relaxing morning of pre-cooking, charging the Jackery, and a short walk around the campground and then off to Mount Rainier about 9:00 AM.  Along the one hour drive, we stopped in the little town of Morton and walked around their flea market and purchased landjagers for Tim and Tim bought me a sundress. Then we picked up about 4 things at the outrageously priced grocery store. The Main Street was lined with people setting up lawn chairs for the Logging Parade that was happening about an hour later. 

We proceeded on toward the park. The line into the park started a mile before the entrance. About 100 yards before the entrance, some enterprising people were selling Washington cherries. It was lunch time and we bought some.  They were scrumptious! The line to get into the park took an hour.  I can’t imagine how long it took before reservations!

We entered through the southwest entrance which is called Nisqually. It is the closest entrance to the most popular part of the park, Paradise.  The first visitor center is in Longmire, which is the most historic part of the park. We found a parking spot, ate lunch at a shady picnic table, stamped our passport and got many questions answered by a lovely young Ranger. One of the questions was “Where can we find the best wildflowers?” She suggested Nisqually Vista Trail. So we set off to find it. We were arriving a day earlier than expected, so we did not have a campsite. Both the Ranger at the entrance, and the Ranger at the VC said the campground were full, and suggested we camp on the Federal land just outside the park. But as we approached The Cougar Rock Campground, I said let’s swing through. At the entrance it said the campground was full, but on the window of the check in kiosk, it said FCFS sites were on loops A and R, and if the card is brown the site is taken, if the card is green, it’s available.  We drove through A and all were reserved. We were driving around R and I thought I saw a little green on a card, so I said “TIM, STOP THE CAR!” The card was green and it was partially covered by a note left by the previous occupant saying that they left a day early and the site was available. Feeling like we won the lottery, we grabbed the card and drove back to the kiosk, and registered for the site for the night. It was a great site, next to the bathroom and water fountain. 

That process took about an hour, though. But still, we were thrilled to be in the park for the night. 

We drove to the trailhead and found  parking. It was Saturday, and the park was very crowded. The Ranger steered us right. The easy 1.2 mile loop full of flower filled meadows was wonderful! 

After that we drove the Stevens Canyon Road through the park stopping at all the vista points, Narada Falls, Reflection Lakes, Box Canyon, etc.  The weather was mostly sunny and about 70, but the top of Mount Rainier was obscured by clouds. We still took lots of pretty photos. On our way back from the scenic drive we decided to stop at one of the panoramic pull offs and have dinner with a great view. While we were there, the clouds cleared and we were treated to a clear view of Mount Rainier. 🗻

We drove back to our site and got ready for an early day tomorrow. 

August 11, 2024

Tim was up before the alarm went off. We got ready and filled water bottles and drove up to Paradise. We pulled into the parking lot about 6:45 AM and were shocked at how many people were already there. 

We found the trailhead for the very popular Skyline Trail, 5.5 miles and strenuous with great views of meadows and glaciers and the volcanoes in the distance. Most people were taking the trail clockwise, but I wanted to do a quick detour on The Golden Gate Trail, which also has good wildflowers, so we headed right. We were very happy we did. The views were spectacular in that direction and we did the first half of the trail with very few people. It was more strenuous in that direction, lots more up, but we were fine. There was a scenic spot called Panorama Point. We ate our snack there. The chipmunks were so tame, one was between my feet trying to get my banana peel through the mesh pocket of my backpack. 

On the way down we saw several marmots. They had zero fear of us. We got within several feet of them. 

When we returned, we went into the gorgeous Paradise VC. We watched the film and looked at the exhibits. 

We learned that Mount Rainier NP is 235,625 acres and the NPS internationally only developed 4% of the park. The rest is left wild.  The region gets ALOT of snow and many of the roads are closed in the winter. 

Mount Rainier is an active volcano standing 14,410 feet above its surroundings. It creates its own weather patterns! About 1.5 million people visit the park annually. About 1400 people attempt to submit Mt. Rainier each year. About half of them make it.

 There are five sections of the park. Paradise receives 70% of the visitors,  followed by Sunrise. The Carbon River and Mowich Lake sections are reached by unpaved roads, so we close not to explore those areas. 

Back in Calypso, we headed back to Reflection Lakes to eat lunch and do a  2 mile moderate hike from there to an overlook of another beautiful lake. 

Our last hike for the day was to Bench and Snow Lakes. It was a 2.5 mile moderate hike with 700’ of elevation gain to two beautiful turquoise lakes. There were lots of kids swimming in Snow Lake. It was getting warm by mid afternoon. We were glad to be done. 

We drove back to the campground and relaxed for a while. 

After dinner we drove down to Longmire to get some cell service. We felt  two days in the Paradise Corridor was enough. We wanted to hike in the Sunrise Corridor on Monday.  Sunrise is a two hour drive and without a reservation, we have to be in before 7 AM. There are a few passes that become available at 7 PM the night before. We drove down to Longmire to try to get a pass for Monday.  We were successful, so we can sleep in until 6 AM! 

August 12, 2024

We woke up to a very foggy morning. The two  hour drive was rather difficult with the fog. We arrived at the Sunrise Corridor and we emerged from the fog to beautiful blue skies above the clouds.

We found the trailhead and started on TheBurroughs Mountain Trail to 2nd Burroughs Mountain, a 6 mile strenuous hike with 1424’ elevation gain. It is a gorgeous trail that follows the top of an old lava flow with views of beautiful lakes, Mount Rainier, Emmons Glacier, and fields full of wildflowers. We ran into so many people from WI!

After lunch we drove 45 minutes to do The

Naches Peak Trail, a  moderate 3.4 miles 500’ elevation gain. It was a perfect afternoon hike. The Ranger said to hike the trail clockwise for the best views. A really cool thing about the trail is that about a mile of the loop is actually part of The Pacific Coast Trail that runs from Canada to Mexico! On the trail, we talked with a couple about our ages. They were picking huckleberries. They showed us what they look like and we picked a few handfuls. Delicious!!

We were unsure what to expect at Mount Rainier.  But we learned it is a great hiking park! Shout out to my daughter’s friend Liz C., who lives in Seattle and gave us some great tips on trails. 

To quote Tim- “This park is so much more than just the mountain!”