We’ve always known that our initial trip route was “rough” and that we would want to edit it as we got on the road.  In that first version, we didn’t have a trip to Mt. Rainier planned, for example.  And we are all so glad we changed things up because it was an amazing park to see.  In fact, all of us would put it in our top 2-3 park locations we have visited so far.

We’ve gotten through “high season” for most locations now that Labor Day is past, which means that some campgrounds aren’t taking reservations… Even though there should be more availability, we were still nervous when we got to La Wis Wis, a US Forest campground just outside Rainier.  Our trailer is “small” at 28 ft by today’s standard, but most national park campgrounds were built when trailers were much shorter, and there are no campgrounds inside the park with sites for any larger than 25 ft trailers.  The forest campgrounds had longer sites, but only a few. So, we held our breaths and crossed our fingers as we rolled into the campground hoping for a nice site.  And Yay!  We found an awesome spot that was surrounded by moss covered trees and had a trail to the river.  It was across from the pit toilets, which we would normally count as a negative, but since it was rainy there were so few other campers that it wasn’t an issue, and it wasn’t smelly.  Shew.

Our “first day” routine when we are at a National Park for multiple days has turned into us driving along the main loop (that seems to be part of most parks) doing some of the shorter hikes and overlooks to see some of the headline features.  So, we set out on day one with a plan to do just that from the southeast entrance, through Paradise, over to the southwest entrance, and then down through the forest and a few small towns back to our campground.  We HOPED, but had low expectations,  to see the actual Mt Rainier…it’s notorious for hiding behind the clouds.  In fact, Chuck and Libba visited the park on two days when they came to visit, but both days the whole place was socked in by fog and they didn’t get a good view.   Imagine our surprise when we came around a curve in the road and POW, there it was!  Nearly completely uncovered.  And so, so pretty.  

Mt. Rainier is absolutely huge and you just can’t help but say WHOA when you see it.  Apparently part of the reason it looks so dominating is because it is a peak standing on it’s own, without a lot of other peaks near it (such as with the Grand Tetons).  It also stands 11,000 feet above the surrounding land, so the overall height is really showcased.  In fact, I read somewhere that a lot of people don’t see Mt. Rainier at first because they aren’t looking for it high enough in the sky.  If you look for it among the other peaks you may see around you, you’re too low.  

Anyway, we pulled over, hopped out of the car and took a bunch of pictures….and within 10 minutes clouds rolled over the top and it was covered the rest of the day.  We later learned that Mt Rainier is tall enough to create its own weather systems.  Clouds rolling in from the ocean (west) come up the side of the mountain and get “stuck” and don’t go over to the east.  Sometimes you may see a clear peak with just a small cloud…and that cloud is dumping a blizzard on the climbers on top.  Or, it may be clear on the east side, but obscured on the west.  

We headed on into the park and stopped to take a walk through the Grove of the Patriarchs, and old growth forest, not unlike what we’d seen at Olympic.  I wonder if when we go to Redwoods in a few weeks or Sequoia a bit later if we will laugh that we’d been amazed by how big these three are.  Maybe, but as of now, these trees impress. 

We also stopped just past the Paradise Visitor Center at Narada Falls and hiked down to the bottom.  Because we had a sunny day, there was a rainbow across the bottom of the falls.  So pretty.  At this point we have seen a LOT of waterfalls on the trip, but the rainbow set it apart. 

We finished our day at the Longmire entrance, hiking to a few more waterfalls.  What made this little hike stand out was crossing the cool bridge made of a fallen tree trunk over the rushing river.  As we drove back into town, we saw several groups of elk, including one big herd making its way right through town…grazing on the field behind the gas station.

We had set aside our second day for a big hike.  After accomplishing the big boy Highline 13-miler over at Glacier, we’d been looking for another long hike to tackle.  Rainier has one called Skyline that takes off out of Paradise, climbs about 1700 feet over two miles, and then comes back down through valleys for another 4 miles…totaling just at 6 miles with an average completion time of 4.5 hours.  We packed lots of snacks and lunch and left the campground early.  It was about 45 degrees when we set off from Paradise and the parking lot was full of groups heading out to tackle the summit — a two day hike that sounds brutal.  We talked to one guy who had been training a year in preparation.  

About a quarter mile into the hike we started shedding layers.  We were all way overdressed (better than underdressed, right?) and sweating.  We had told Maya the first part was hard, and it was indeed a pretty constant climb.  But the view!!! Rainier was pretty much completely out of the clouds for the whole day.  And, once we got to about 6500 feet, behind us we could see Mt Adams, Mt St Helen, and far off in the distance Mt. Hood.  It was a crystal clear day and pretty much the best weather you could ask for.  The kids started counting marmots, and by the time we finished we’d seen 21…two of them tried pretty hard to eat our lunch with us, in fact.  Late in the hike we saw a black bear in the distance.  Our kids were champions on this hike.  We finished it in just under 4.5 hours and felt great.

Rainier smells good.  A beautiful pine smell that is crisp and clean and almost a little citrus-y too.  Black Hills smells good too, but it’s a deeper and richer smell..and more single note.  Rainier is lighter.  Not meaning you can’t smell it as strongly because the smell is intense.  But the pine scent is just different.  I want to find a candle with that smell because it’s amazing.  And Pine Sol has it all wrong, I can tell you that for sure.  

On our final day in the park we headed up to the northeast corner to go up to Sunrise and see things from the “other side”.  Sunrise visitor center sits at 6500 feet (Paradise was at 5400).  We considered getting up at 4:30 and driving up to see…sunrise, of course.   But once we checked the weather and saw that it was going to be in the 40s and possibly raining, we decided to just leave early instead of crazy early.  Thank goodness, too, because it rained all night and when we drove up there, the whole area was thick with fog.  In some places you couldn’t see trees that were 100m away, and in others you could see the forest covered hills with fog drifting over them.  Beautiful for sure, but not what we would have been looking for at sunrise.

We then set off on a quick three mile hike that turned out to be one of the best hikes we’ve done on the whole trip…it was packed with the greatest hits…waterfalls, rushing river with a cool bridge, mossy little streams, a view of the largest glacier in the lower 48, plus the gorgeous glacial lake it feeds, and a view of Mt Rainier itself.  And more of my new favorite smell.  By the time we reached the end of the trail at the highest overlook (although we could see the glacier, lake and mountain for at least the top quarter mile) most of the fog had burned off and Mt Rainier was even showing glimpses through the clouds.  All of that in three pretty easy miles.  It’s not mentioned in either of the guidebooks we have and we have no idea why.  We knocked it out in a few hours and headed back to have a chill night at the campground and prepare to head into Portland.  I’ll say it again…thank goodness we didn’t skip this park.