Mt Rainier NP

Majestic and awesome were my first thoughts as Mt Rainier dominated the landscape on our drive into the NP. After lots of rain during our visit to the Olympic Peninsular the weather now seemed to be improving as we enjoyed mostly sunshine with a few light showers during the day.

A picture perfect day

Here in the NP there are many trails so we called into the Visitors Center to inquire about backpacking. We walked out with a different plan for some day hikes as the weather forecast advised cold, wet and snowy conditions for the next few days. Happy with our plan we drove onto Cougar Campground and settled in for the night.

When daylight came my excitement grew as we set off early to Reflection Lakes. The wildness and beauty of the landscape was evident as we passed vast pathways of boulder strewn rocks and densely forested ridges and valleys.  We had a wonderful time taking photos of Mt Rainier’s reflection before continuing on to Paradise Valley where Mt Rainier dominated the landscape.

Reflection Lake

The day was turning out to be perfect with clear blue skies and plenty of sunshine so we took the opportunity to spend the day hiking.

It really was a wonderful experience as we took in the scene of colourful flowers carpeting the terrain, stepped over clear streams cascading down over gold coloured rocks and watched fat Hoary Marmots feasting away on the purple flowers of the Lupine plants in preparation for a cold winter ahead.

Hoary Marmot

We met an 87 year “young” gentleman out on a day’s hike and helped him across part of the trail covered in snow on our way to Pebble Creek where we touched the snow of the Muir Snowfield and spoke to hikers who had climbed a further 3,000ft to Muir Camp at 10,188ft and then skied back down.

Pebble Creek

After a long day hiking we stopped at the restaurant to enjoy a beer as we gazed up at the mountain.

The next day turned out to be cloudy but we didn’t let this put us off spending the day hiking up to Comet Falls and onto Van trump Park.

Comet Falls

Christine Falls

Then the weather came in bringing misty, rainy and cold conditions but undeterred we hiked out to Bench and Snow Lakes. Snow Lake had a wonderful campsite overlooking the Lake.

With the weather closing in and snow falling at 5,000 ft we decided the Wonderland Trail would wait for us…..it was time to continue south.