Day trip to Mt Rainier

After our two week stay in Portland we went north into Washington. We stopped at Centralia, Washington just 100 miles north of Portland. A nice, easy drive except for all the traffic on the interstate. We are now at the Midway RV Park. It is very small, but very nice. Super clean and well landscaped with nice, big sites. It isn’t a campground you come to for the campground, but its great as a base to see Mt Rainier National Park and Mt. Saint Helens Volcano.

So on our first, almost clear day, we drove up to Mt Rainier. Mt Rainier NP was established in 1899 making it one of the oldest national parks. It is also one of the world’s most massive volcanoes at nearly 3 miles in height. Of course with that height and the clouds of Washington, we weren’t too hopeful that we would see the top. However, the park has three accessible areas that we were interested in seeing. First up was the Nisqually entrance and Longmire area. Longmire was built up as a tourist destination in 1883 by James Longmire who discovered the mineral springs that were everywhere in the meadows and marshlands.

You can see the bubbles from the mineral springs:

The area is also home to industrious beavers:

A lovely wooded trail:

and the Longmire Museum.

While this deer looks like a statue, he isn’t. He was just very calmly hanging around the visitor center enjoying the grass and sunshine. And maybe hoping for a handout!

From there we drove further into the park and started the climb up the mountain.

This is one of the 25 named glaciers in the park. This one is the Nisqually Glacier which is about 4 miles long and flows downhill about 6-12 inches every summer day.

 

Majestic mountains and blue skies made for a beautiful drive:

The second area in the park we wanted to visit was the Paradise Visitor center. This is a large meadow area was named Paradise due to the fields of wildflowers. I was really looking forward to seeing them….

But no wildflowers yet…just snow!!!!

So after climbing around in the snow, visiting the visitor’s center, and having our afternoon pie and coffee, we headed further east in the park.

Washington had a lot of snow and rain this year and so with all the runoff, there were waterfalls all along the road.

A stop at Box Canyon for a short hike to the Steven’s Creek.

Notice how smooth the rock is from the rushing water:

Our last stop was at the Grove of the Patriarchs. This 1.3 mile hike leads into an area of old growth forests much like those we saw in the Redwoods. Along the way Lee stopped to push a tree back up, we walked across a swinging bridge, and….

We saw a bear cub! Or rather we saw each other…he was just as interested in us as we were in him. But thankfully, momma was too busy eating to worry about us! We never saw her.

 

On the way out we admired the big old trees and some interesting fungus:

No flowers, but we did see the sun and a bear!!