Mount Rainier National Park
DISCLAIMER: I am going to overuse the following words in this blog about Mount Rainier: SPECTACULAR, BREATHTAKING, AWE-INSPIRING, and AMAZING. We have fallen in love with this National Park and am not sure that I can express how much I enjoyed the stay in actual words.
We started our EPIC 12 day vacation with a weekend in the SPECTACULAR MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK. My husband and I are crazy planners, so for us some of the fun of vacation is the actual planning. When we started planning this vacation, we were not even going to go over to Mount Rainier National Park, then we were going to go for a quick day tour out of Seattle, and then all of a sudden we were staying at the AMAZING Paradise Inn for the whole weekend. As it turns out, this might have been one of the best decisions that we made when planning this vacation. The weekend at Mount Rainier National Park, staying at the Paradise Inn, kicked off our vacation with a bang. Mount Rainier is BREATHTAKING.
We flew into Seattle early on Friday morning, picked up the rental car, and drove directly over to Mount Rainier National Park. We entered the park from the Nisqually Southwest Entrance. There are four entrances in each of the four corners of this massive park. It was exciting driving into the park. Perhaps it is so exciting because this area of the country is so different from Florida, it could have been that we were lucky and the angle of the sunlight shining through the trees was perfect, or maybe there is something AWE-INSPIRING about a National Park!! As you drive into the park, you drive through the enchanted forest. It really looks magical, something about the sparkling green mossy glow. We were kind of expecting to see magical creatures appear from the forest as we drove.
We stopped in Longmire at the National Park Inn for lunch. Honestly, it was probably pretty good, but we were both on the hangry side, the power went out, there were delays, and the staff was not at the top of their game that day. It was a minor blip in our experience, but once we recovered with full stomachs, we were ready to experience everything! We used the BEST EASY DAY HIKES MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK to plan our hikes and it was spot on with all its helpful descriptions and information about the trails. Just know that the “easy” part describes the ability to follow the well-maintained paths and does not necessarily mean they will not be strenuous, but the book says that too.
Longmire is at the foot of Mount Rainier and there is lots to do at relatively flat and low elevations. There was the National Park Inn (open year-round), Information Center (where we found our National Park Passport Stamp), a General Store, a Museum, and numerous trails. We hiked the short, easy, 0.7 mile TRAIL OF SHADOWS. This was a great introduction to the park, it was beautiful, and had informational markers about the history of the park. I recommend doing this as you go into the park, because as you go up the mountain everything just gets more and more SPECTACULAR and outshines the last thing you saw.
As we left Longmire and headed up to Paradise, we decided we would stop at a couple of easy hikes and take advantage of the great views. We stopped at CARTER FALLS which has a moderate 2.2 mile, 2 hour casual hike ending with TWO WATERFALLS. The trail starts near the COUGAR ROCK CAMPGROUND. On a clear day as you start your hike, you can see right up the Nisqually River to a stunning view of the mountain, but there were too many clouds for us to enjoy that view this particular day. I was disappointed, but was quickly distracted by the other AMAZING views. The path followed along Paradise River uphill to CARTER FALLS. As we hiked up, I was a little tired of hiking uphill, but was appreciative as that meant the return trip was all downhill. There were families with children running all about, so I am going to blame our exhaustion on the long travel day and not the difficulty of the hike. We were rewarded for our efforts with two WATERFALLS. Once we were back down the path, we jumped back into the car and our next stop was the scenic overlook of NARADA FALLS. Did I mention earlier that the views and experiences would become more AMAZING and BREATHTAKING as we continued up? NARADA FALLS was AMAZING, but we decided we would not hike down to see it up close as our exhaustion from the travel day was winning. As we continued up the mountain to the Paradise Inn. The views from the drive were stunning as we made our way to an elevation of 5550 feet.
Finally, we made it up to the PARADISE INN parking lot, where we found ourselves on the side of the mountain with SPECTACULAR views, the Paradise Inn, the Paradise Jackson Visitors Center, the start of so many trails, and a whole lot of people. The mountain was still covered in clouds and fog, so we had no idea the wonderful surprise we were in for when we woke up the next morning. That might have been good, because we were exhausted, we needed to check into the Inn, check out the amenities, visitor center, gift stores, and grab dinner in the dining hall. Keeping in mind that we started our day at 2am EST and it was now 730PM PST, we were done and fell asleep before the sun went down. This would continue to be a theme throughout our entire vacation, as we had a tough time adjusting to the time change until the very end when it was time to come home.
I was awake by 430am and for a really short time tried not to wake up my husband to get our day started. It did not last long, before we were both up, eating breakfast at the TATOOSH CAFÉ by 6am, and starting on our hike of the SKYLINE TRAIL. The clouds had burned off and as it turns out there is a BREATHTAKING view of the mountain from the Paradise Inn parking lot. We were so excited to get started, we decided not to wait for the information center to open at 7am for guides advice. We had looked at everything the night before, we were just a little unsure of ice cover. The trail is considered a strenuous 5.5 mile hike passing by Alta Vista, Glacier Vista, Panorama Point, Pebble Creek, and Sluiskin and Myrtle Falls. The elevation was really hard for these two sea level living Floridians and the trail has some steep inclines. We were not sure if we would make it all the way around because some parts of the paths were still covered in ice, but we were able to make it around without ice shoes or hiking poles (although I wish we had brought hiking poles). We are both in our mid 40’s, in moderate shape, with no elevation hike training, and this trail was hard but completely reasonable for us to complete. The views were SPECTACULAR, the feeling of being so high and close to the mountain felt amazing, and I have not even mentioned the Marmot’s yet. We had our first introduction to MARMOTs. We had never heard of these furry, little, beaverlike creatures. They were adorable and so funny to watch as they ran around playing. We saw rivers, waterfalls, hiked on ice, reached elevation of over 7000 feet, walked across rivers, walked up crazy inclines, and STOPPED TO REST A LOT. We completed the trail before noon, exhausted and not sure we could complete another hike that day. After some rest and food, we regrouped and did walk the easy 1.2 miles NISQUALLY VISTA LOOP and the 0.25 mile MYRTLE FALLS LOOP. There were so many paved, easy, short paths right from the parking lot that made it perfect for day visitors, families, ADA restricted guests, etc… I wish we had more energy and could have completed the moderate 5 mile LAKES LOOPS, but we just did not have anything left for more hikes. Instead we enjoyed the afternoon with our short hikes, exploring the gift shops, and a whole lot of relaxing while sitting and enjoying the views. We did head back over to the visitor’s center for our NATIONAL PARK PASSPORT STAMP. One thing to note, there is no mobile cell service, no internet, and no TV. You are forced to disconnect, unless you go sit in the visitor’s center. This is harder for me than for my husband, but ultimately it made the trip even better and forced us to focus on the surroundings. We finished our day enjoying a beverage and eating in the dining hall again. Once again, we fell asleep before the sun set. The only reason this was a little sad, is the Inn has nighttime star gazing events that start right after sunset. I am certain they would have been worth staying up, but we could just not force ourselves to keep our eyes open.
When you go to bed before the sun sets, you tend to wake up as it rises. This was the day we had to check out and head back to Seattle. We decided to head out to REFLECTION LAKE and keep our fingers crossed the weather would be clear and the winds calm, so that we could snap that perfect Mount Rainier Reflection Lake picture. Our luck held and we were able to snap our SPECTACULAR picture. We heard some others commenting that this had been the first day in a month the weather was perfect for this picture! This was a perfect way to end our weekend at the National Park before we headed on to Seattle to continue our vacation. On our way out, we did drive through COUGAR ROCK CAMPGROUND. Although we did not stay at the campground this trip, we had to check it out for a future trip. It was beautiful, but does look very rustic with no water, electric or sewer. I have added it to my bucket list for future camping travel.
Mount Rainier National Park, you have inspired us to dream of more travel, more outdoors, and more hiking adventures. I hope I will be lucky enough to come back for another visit! You are absolutely SPECTACULAR, BREATHTAKING,AWE-INSPIRING, and AMAZING.
