Day 29 - Our Sixth National Park

Got up around 6:00 am to head to Mt. Rainier NP. After our experience of getting a little later start for Logans Pass and experiencing parking stress, we decided to make this trip even earlier.

Glad we did. It took us about 2 hours to reach the park. We began our drive up the mountain to Sunrise Visitors Center. Not crowded at all! The ride up is not as thrilling as Logans Pass in Glacier but still beautiful. The road is lined with pines with an every-so-often glimpse of glacier-covered Mt Rainier. When we reached the top, there was plenty of parking.

We readied ourselves for the 2.5 mile trail up to “Frozen Lake.” We both agreed that this was one of our favorite hikes. It was an pretty easy with views all the way.

Mt. Rainier is around 14,000 ft. Sunrise Visitors Center is about 7,000 ft. About 10,000 people attempt to climb to the summit each year and about 50% make it. People have died making this climb as a result of falls or avalanches. It’s a striking mountain that can be seen from everywhere. What struck us about the mountains here is that unlike other National Parks that have a large single chain of mountains, this park has multiple chains resulting in beautiful dimensional mountain views.

There were lots of meadow flowers. One of the most common is called the lupine, a beautiful purple flower. We saw them in all the parks so far except for the Badlands.

After our hike we went to the Visitors Center and then headed to our car to descend the mountain. As we left we saw that not only was the parking lot full but there was a line of cars waiting to enter the lot. Down we went zig zagging the mountain with the white-capped Mt. Rainier in view. As we approached the exit gate we again saw a line of cars. And what a line! There was a least 1 miles of cars waiting to get into the park. We looked at each other thankful that we got up to catch the early worm!

Some of you know that Pat is fond of Costco and since she hadn’t been in a store since we left Pittsburgh we decided to find a store. After all, this is where it all started. Their first store was in Seattle. WA. And in fact, their headquarter offices are here in Issaquah where we are staying. We picked up a few things including Kirkland beer. Tim thought he would give it a try. The store was huge and very crowded. Pat got her fix!

Back we headed to our Airstream to shower and head to Mass. Tomorrow we are spending time with our niece Molly and her little daughter June. Looking forward to seeing them.