Being completely disconnected, we had no idea what the weather was going to be. We could see some clouds rolling in between the trees but it did not look bad. We hopped in the truck to begin our explorations of Mt Rainer NP, looking forward to beautiful views of the mountain. We had a 30 mile drive, which would take us over White Pass, to the Southeast entrance to the Park. As we climbed to the pass the cloud became thicker and soon it was drizzling steadily with occasional bouts of heavy rain. When we hit the top of the pass, we found a ski resort that was closed for the season, but more important, we had cell service! Yes! So we pulled over and checked our mail, text messages, and let folks know we would not be easy to reach.
Then proceeded on to the park. We stopped at the entrance sign to get a picture of the iconic entry gates before proceeding into the park. We made our way along the Stevens Canyon Road to the Paradise Visitor Center. As we climbed in altitude, the fog moved in, at times we had to slow down to under 20mph and really could not see any scenery. We climbed through the lower cloud deck and the fog thinned as we got to Reflection Lake, but the only reflection we were going to see was more clouds. When we got to the Paradise parking area, the parking lot was full, but we were able to find a parking spot after one quick circle. It was raining and the clouds were low, so we were not going to see the mountain this morning. At the visitor center we collected our44th Passport Stamp,explored the exhibits, shopped in the gift store, watched the park movie and talked with the rangers to figure out the hiking options.
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| Behemoth in the fog and shadow pines |
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| Mt Rainer NP Entrance Gate |
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| Christine Falls |
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| Mt Rainer at last! |
With the rain and heavy fog, we decided to head for the Longmire Area on the south west side of the park. Even with the rain and fog, there were a larger number of people heading out to hike the trails in the Paradise area. We headed down Paradise Road to Longmire. As we worked our way west and down, the clouds started to break up and the sun eventually poked out. We had lunch at the National Park Inn, a historic structure that dated back to the 1920s but was not much to look at architecturally. We looked through the small museum before deciding to head out of the park to one of the small towns to the east to get fuel and some supplies. We quickly found out these small towns did not have much to offer but were eventually able to find fuel and enough supplies to get by.
As we headed back into the park, the sun came out and the temperatures began to warm up. We took the time to drive the primitive West Road, hoping to see some wild life, but only saw lots of big trees and got the truck covered in mud again. As we neared the Paradise area, we got our first good look at Mt. Rainer. It was amazing. Still mostly covered in snow and ice, glaciers draping its sides and clouds parting to pass by it. It was a sight! We pulled off at one of the scenic viewing points and gawked at the site, along with about 50 other people. Our first sign of what was to come. As we drove back along the road we had come up that morning in the fog, we were amazed to see we had been climbing along the edge of a deep canyon. In many ways the road reminded us of Going-to-the-Sun road in Glacier, just not as narrow. Once back at the Wanderer, we reviewed the hike materials and came up with our plan.
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