Washington Trip Part 2 -- Mt. Rainier National Park

"I mean, I look at a piano, I see a bunch of keys, three pedals, and a box of wood. But Beethoven, Mozart, they saw it, they could just play." --Will, Good Will Hunting

Before I discuss the 2nd part of our trip, a few things. First, my apologies for all the grammatical and spelling mistakes in the previous post. I rushed it, didn’t really proofread it, and I’d like to blame it on someone else, but it’s my entire fault.

Second, Sage reminded me of something I forgot to mention in the previous blog. If you recall, after seeing the bear I made sure to mention that to the rangers at the visitor’s center after the hike. What I failed to mention is that I pretty much worked it into any and all conversations for the next 2 days. Later that day, while we were hiking back from Sol Duc Falls, a backcountry ranger went hiking past, and I stopped him and asked if he ever saw bears down in that area of the park, “because we just saw one today up on Hurricane Ridge”. And that night, while at the bar, the guy from Chicago mentioned that he and his wife were planning a trip up to Hurricane Ridge (to see the views, if the clouds cleared up), and I said, “Hey, we were up there this morning…we even saw a bear!” Sage wouldn’t stop razzing me for bringing it up as much as I could, and it became a standing joke for us during the week. “That’s an interesting accent you have there…are you from Eastern Europe? You are? Have you ever seen bears there? Because we saw one just the other day…”

But back to where I left off.

Tuesday, June 29

After our trip to Beach 4, we got in the car for the long drive to Mt. Rainier. It wasn’t long on miles (less than 200), but it took over 4 1/2 hours to get there, as it was primarily back roads. On the way we drove through Aberdeen, famous as it’s the hometown of Nirvana (2/3 of the members anyway – Kurt Cobain and Kris Novoselic are from Aberdeen; Dave Grohl is a Washington, DC native), and I know that because that trivia tidbit won me 2 free movie passes from a radio station while I was in college. Good times.

The rest of the drive wasn’t nearly as exciting as going through Aberdeen, although at one point we did see a sign for a Mt. St. Helens Viewpoint, which we detoured to see. Unfortunately it was cloudy, and to we couldn’t tell exactly which mountain it was, so we took photos of several possibilities. (Turns out we were looking at the right mountain, but we got a better view of it later in the trip.) We didn’t get any glimpse of Rainier at all on the way there, as it was much cloudier than the day we arrived in Seattle. We arrived at Mt. Rainier around 2:30 pm and stopped at the Longmire area of the park first. We did a short trail around a meadow/sulfur spring, and stopped at the Ranger Station to enquire about other hikes. Turns out that most of the trails were still covered with snow, but the young ranger was helpful on some tips which turned out well the next day. We spent a few moments sitting on the front porch of the National Park Inn at Longmire, and every few seconds a bit of Mt. Rainier would peak out from behind the clouds before becoming obscured again. We snapped photos thinking, “Well, we may never see it out from the clouds again.”

Rainier begins to emerge...the views did get better

After relaxing at Longmire we headed up the road some more to the Paradise area of the park, where we’d be staying at the Paradise Inn. This part of the park had plenty of snow, lots of ragged peaks in the foothills, and it really reminded us both of the Alps. (Not that we’ve ever been there, but it just seemed that way.) Dating back to 1916, Paradise Inn is a classic, old national park lodge. It has a great, open lobby, old fashioned décor, and wonderful, huge fireplaces.

Inside lobby of the Paradise Inn

The room we got…not so classic. It was so small, it would make a modest hotel room in New York City look like a Presidential Suite. There was room for 2 twin beds, one chair, a night stand, and nothing else.

Doug tries to find room to take off his shoes.

It still had a certain charm, kind of like an old ski chalet (although I might have gotten that impression from cheap wood paneling in the room), and we initially thought it was kind of cute. That is, until about half an hour later when a couple of German guys checked in to the room next to us, and we realized that the 2-inch wood paneling that separates the rooms didn’t do much as far as making the room a quiet place for relaxing and sleep. Instead of listening to their talking, we headed out to look around the Paradise area.

Outside we noticed immediately that the ranger’s comments on the snow-covered trails were true. There were a lot of trails that left right from the lodge/ranger station at Paradise, and all were covered in about 7 feet of snow. We hung out in the lobby area, figuring out what hikes we would attempt the next day, and then played Yahtzee until it was dinner time. But before we could sit down in the lodge’s dining room, a fire alarm went off, evacuating the entire place. After 10 minutes of shivering in the 45 degree air, we finally got back in to have our meal. My food was really good: The soup of the day was roasted red pepper bisque, which easily was the best food I had all week; and the rainbow trout was flaky and tasty. Sage wasn’t as enthusiastic about her choice of Chicken Parmesan, but she did enjoy her caprese salad appetizer. After dinner we headed up to the loft above the lodge’s lobby and played some more games while we listened to the lobby’s piano player delight everyone with show tunes and standard favorites.

The lobby's pianist, stroking the keys

Heading back to our room around 8:15 pm we were lucky enough to see the clouds drift away momentarily, and we got a nice view of Rainier right from our (small) room window.

Rainier from our room...the views did get better

But off to the west storm clouds were on the horizon, which didn’t bode well for the night and day ahead, and when the wind picked up the room got very drafty. (The window looked to be an original, single-pane version, so I wasn’t surprised when the drapes kept moving from the wind.) With only a few spare blankets and a dusty baseboard heater to get us through the night, we tucked in and hoped for the best.

Daily hiking mileage: 2 miles

Wednesday, June 30

And a rough night it was. At about 9 pm the German next door stopped talking, and almost immediately, he began snoring. That didn’t stop until, well, never, and neither of us got very much shuteye. (As it turned out, this was the only poor sleeping night of the trip, which left me pleasantly surprised.) Also, with the baseboard heater putting out dry air, plus being at over 5,000 feet, our throats were as dry as a teetotaler’s birthday party, but we got up around 6:30 am anyway and headed out for our first hike of the day. We went back to the Longmire area and did a loop hike of Rampart Ridge & the Wonderland Trail. The first 1.5 miles of the trail went straight up 1,300 vertical feet, but it went through a great, old hardwood forest. It was full of big trees, but was quite empty under the canopy, leaving the forest open but dark. I really loved that type of forest. Once on the ridge the hike flattened out, and we caught a couple views of the River and of Longmire, where we started.

Longmire from the top of Rampart Ridge

The trail met up with the Wonderland Trail, a 93 mile trail that goes entirely around Mt. Rainer, offering great views of meadows, forests, and of course the mountain itself from every vantage point. At this point we dropped into a totally different forest – very thick vegetation, much smaller trees – and we descended all the way back to Longmire. The hike ended up being 5 miles total, and in the 3 hours it took us to complete it, we didn’t pass 1 other person the entire time. Now that’s my type of hike.

Afterwards we headed up the road to the Carter Falls trailhead and did a short 2.5 mile roundtrip hike to the falls. The falls themselves weren’t that exciting, but the beginning of the hike featured a precarious crossing of the Nisqually River via a makeshift log bridge.

Narrow, and pretty temporary, log bridge

That was pretty cool, but not much else to say about the hike. On the way back to the car we got some more good views of Rainier as the clouds started to lift even a bit more. We headed back to Longmire after the hike for lunch, where the regular descriptions applied (mediocre, overpriced food).

On the way back to the room we decided to hit some viewpoints on the road around Rainier, as it was turning into a nice, partly sunny day. One of the stops was at Reflection Lake, which is where many of the more famous photos of Mt. Rainier are taken from. The small lake perfectly reflects Rainier in its surface, so why not try to stop and get the money shot? Well, I’ll tell you why: Ice.

Rainier and Reflection Lake...the views did get better

Yep, the lake hadn’t fully melted yet, so the only reflection we were going to see of Rainier was off the ice or in our rearview mirror. We finally made it back to Paradise Inn to rest the feet, and as we walked through the lodge to our room I decided to stop by the front desk. I asked, if by chance the person who was in room 420 (stop laughing Graham) the previous night had checked out. He looked at me curiously for a second, so I said, “The guy snored like a rhinoceros”. He looked it up and said he had checked out. “Thank God”, I muttered, as he and the woman working with him both laughed. (I was going to mention the bear sighting to them as well, but Sage just wanted to rest for a bit.) Back at the room, Sage napped while I did some more reading. (Speaking of books, I started by reading Consider the Lobster, a collection of essays by David Foster Wallace. While the guy is a brilliant writer, his thick, dense style doesn’t lend itself well to vacation reading, so I switched to my backup, The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy. Much better, although I probably won’t finish it until Christmas.)

After the rest we decided to try our luck on the Skyline Trail, one of the snow-covered trails that left from Paradise. The first 10 minutes Sage absolutely hated it: The snow was very loose and slushy, so the going was tough; there wasn’t any sort of trail to follow, as it seemed that everyone just walked wherever they wanted up the mountain; and it was full of morons acting like idiots. After a some time, however, a single trail started to form, which was much firmer and easier to hike on, and many of the people stopped after only ½ mile or so, leaving the side of the mountain much more pleasant.

Doug slogs up the slushy snow

The Skyline Trail heads up the side of Rainier for a couple miles, and it’s the trail that many of the mountaineers who are climbing all the way to the top begin on as well. We witnessed marmots playing in a small meadow about 1.5 miles up, and the views were absolutely fantastic. For the first time of our trip Rainier was entirely clear, and we could see all around us as well, including all the way to Mt. St. Helens, which was probably 30 miles away.

Mt. St. Helens, with half of its side blown out

The view of the surrounding foothills from Panorama Point

We were still about 8,000 vertical feet, and maybe 8 miles of hiking short of the peak of Rainier, but it looked so close, it felt like we could make it to the top by dinner! Instead we turned around and headed back to the room where hot showers and quiet neighbors awaited us.

As close to the top of Rainier as we would get. And no, the views didn't get better than this.

Around 5:30 we went down to the lobby to enjoy the musical stylings of the resident pianist again. Sage wanted to celebrate our long day of hiking by downing a couple of local brews (actually, an Alaskan Amber Ale and a Red Hook) while sitting on the outdoor patio.

Great view, good beer, and clear skies

Well imbibed, we tried to wrangle up some food. The little café in the lobby had sandwiches, but they were out of Turkey, which is what Sage really wanted, and out of the Chicken Caesar wrap, which is what I really wanted. Instead we partook of the beverage/food service in the lobby, wherein one of the waitresses from the dining room comes around and offers up food and drink. Instead of dinner I went right for dessert and got a piece of blackberry pie along with a bottle of local red wine. Sage decided to simply eat some leftover trail food instead, and we played games in the lobby until 8-ish. Back at the room, we packed up and organized to get ready for the last 3rd of our trip, as we were about to head north to Snoqualmie and the Cascades.

Daily hiking mileage: 10 miles

Oh, and why stop at just 5 photos of Rainier? Here's one more, probably our best shot of the week.

Last shot of Rainier...I promise.