The thing about visiting a mountain is that you cannot see it when you are on it. This truth does not make Mount Rainier any less spectacular, it simply explains the scarcity of photographs of the mountain itself.
The trip odometer reached 5,000 miles as we left Oregon and entered Washington, having followed the Columbia River east from the Pacific Ocean, and crossing it at the Lewis & Clark Bridge. We were briefly back on Interstate 5, once again heading north.
I have family in the Seattle area, an aunt and uncle and their two sons, my first cousins.
One cousin is an Alaska Air pilot, who lives in a beautiful home on 20 acres near the little town of Eatonville, about an hour’s drive from Seattle. We arrived there around noon for a wonderful extended family gathering, and spent the afternoon enjoying a view of horses, deer, and Mount Rainier; sharing homemade pizza, salad, and cheesecake tortes; all the while catching up with the “old” and meeting the children that are the next generation.
We spent the next day exploring Mount Rainier National Park. The summit is at 14,411 feet making Tahoma (as the native tribes called her) visible from almost every corner of the state.
Alpine meadows above the timber line receive over 50 feet of snowfall annually yet produce jaw-dropping displays of wildflowers during their brief growing season from mid-June to mid-September. We arrived in early May, too early for the wildflowers, and found much of this beautiful mountain still blanketed in snow.
We were pleasantly surprised to find the park road open to the city of Paradise which sits at 6,200 feet. On the way up, we took advantage of the blue skies and clear road and stopped at the Longmire Museum, and hiked the informative Trail of the Shadows, which told the story of the Longmire family who discovered mineral springs here and built a “Medical Springs Resort” in 1890. The orange water, bubbling springs, sulfur gas, and beautiful (if stinky!) yellow skunk cabbage were quite a draw!
We stopped again further up the mountain at the trail head to the Carter Falls Trail. The signs in the parking area best tell the story of the winter conditions just a short time earlier.
Once on the trail, we had a steep descent into a wide rocky basin crisscrossed with a ribbon of river. We were rewarded for our effort with a log footbridge that had enough give and sway to make reaching the far bank particularly heart stopping! Although not evident in the photographs, the sound of the waterfalls cascading down the canyon walls combined with the roar of the river itself made any attempt to talk impossible. We could easily imagine this valley filled with raging waters when the snow-covered peaks surrounding us melted.
Back on the road, we continued up. As if by magic, when we arrived at 5,000 feet in elevation, we were surrounded by snow. The plows had cleared the road, but the snowbanks topped ten feet in spots. The “snow play area” at Paradise was closed but it served as a base camp for hardy hikers and climbers.
We visited briefly with a group preparing for a summit attempt, chatting as they strapped snowshoes onto their hiking boots before donning impossibly cumbersome backpacks. The ice picks hung from their packs at the spot where I would normally stow my cellphone: a foreboding prediction for what lay ahead. Ron and I wished them luck, and silently exchanged our “ain’t no way in Hell!” look.
The storm clouds that had been approaching all day finally reached us, and a wintery mix began to fall as we headed back down the mountain. Although we only climbed 6,000 of her 14,000 feet, we were grateful for all the mountain shared with us.
Car Talk
Astoria, Oregon to Eatonville, Washington
Distance: 145.5 miles
Driving Time: 2 hours, 50 minutes
Mileage: around 30 mph (forgot to check)
Average Speed: 52 mph
Trip Total: 5,126.1
Exploring Mount Rainier from Eatonville
Distance: 116 miles
Driving Time: 4 hours, 20 minutes
Mileage: 31.3 mpg
Average Speed: 26 mph
Trip Total: 5,242.1 miles
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