We left Seaquest State Park the day before the 4th of July. We noticed that early in the morning the rangers had put new reservation cards on all the campsites. The park was going to be full for the holiday and we had been able to enjoy the quiet before the storm of campers.
After a brief time on the freeway, we turned east and were on small state roads as we headed towards Mount Rainier National Park. We arrived at a very small private campground for our four night stay. We were unable to get cell phone, internet or satellite tv as we were under a thick canopy of trees. This campground was very convenient as it was less than a mile from the entrance to the park.
After setting up we headed to one of the Visitors Centers called Paradise in the park. The drive there was beautiful as we rose to an elevation of 5400 feet, passing small waterfalls fed by melting snow along the way.
Mount Rainier National Park became a park in 1899 and was the nation’s fifth national park.
More than 97% of the park is wilderness which includes glaciers, forests, meadows, lakes and wetlands. One of the Rangers at Paradise told us that this area is the second snowiest place on earth, with Mount Baker, also in north Washington State being the first. This is due to the amount of moisture it receives from the Pacific Northwest. We were somewhat taken aback when we asked the Ranger about hiking trails and he told us the trails at Paradise were currently snow covered with three to six feet of packed snow. If we wanted to do any hiking in the park without snow we would have to go to a lower elevation.
We looked out of the massive windows at the Visitors Center and could see people walking up and down one of the snow packed trails. We could see those coming down often slipping and falling as the snow packed trail had turned to ice.
No thanks! We were unable to catch a glimpse of Mount Rainier as he was hiding behind a thick cloud cover. Once we reached a lower elevation on our drive down, Bill was able to capture a picture, though he had to be patient and wait for some clouds to pass.
The next day which was the 4th of July, we arose early to get a head start on the holiday crowd. We drove to another location in the park called Sunrise Visitors Center. With an elevation of 6,400 feet, this is the highest point you can drive to in the park, and the views were amazing.
It was a bright sunny day and we were able to get great views of Mount Rainier and the surrounding mountains and valleys.
Along the way we came upon a brown bear eating some grass along the side of the road.
We were pretty amazed to see him! We stopped and rolled down the window to take some pictures. He ignored us and kept eating, at one point crossing the road in front of the car to continue his lunch on the other side. By this time cars on both sides of the road had stopped to take pictures.
Mt Rainier is a 14,410 foot tall ice covered volcano. It is in the same class of volcanoes as Mt St Helens. Though the glaciers are not as massive as they once were, the 35 square miles of glaciers constitute the largest single peak glacier system in the lower 48 states. There are at least 25 glaciers with six of them originating at the summit ice cap. Each year approximately 10,000 people attempt to climb Mount Rainier. Almost half of those reach the summit. When we were at the Visitors Center they had a telescope outside and Bill spotted three climbers who looked like tiny dots high on the mountain.
We ate our picnic lunch while savoring this gorgeous view
and then drove back down to a lower elevation where we hiked to a beautiful waterfall. I loved the bridge made from a log.