Our next stop is a highlight of the Pacific Northwest: Mount Rainier and its iconic snow-covered peak, multitudes of wildflowers and breathtaking hikes. Friends from home are meeting us which adds to our anticipation.
We arrive on a gray, overcast day. It is a very long drive from North Cascades. Including the stop to test our battery, it takes us over seven hours. We thought going through the Seattle area mid-day, mid-week would mean no traffic but… we are wrong. We are utterly and completely exhausted. To top it all off, we desperately need to do laundry and we are low on food.
We stay at a campground about an hour outside the park – in Taidnapam State Park, outside the little town of Glenoma, Washington. Lots of big trees, which gives the campground a dark, almost enchanted feel. Our site has electric and water (but no sewer) and is spacious and private, thick with trees and ferns, lush and gorgeous. It is a pull through so it is easy to get in. Exhausted as we are, after setting up, we bag up all the laundry and go to the laundromat in nearby Morton. We HAVE to do laundry. The advantage of a laundromat is at least it’s done all at once. By the time we finish, it is 8pm… and we haven’t eaten dinner yet! And we are really low on food. Eating out it is. Right around the corner we stumble onto Rivers Coffehouse and Bistro with excellent food and a super cozy ambiance. Things are looking much better after some gourmet pizza and local craft beer. We drive home through the ubiquitous fog and fall asleep to slow and heavy raindrops lulling us to sleep.
Our first Rainier morning we sleep in and recover from the long drive the day before. A misty overcast day, which turns rainy. In the afternoon, we drive to the Paradise Visitor Center atop Rainier to scout out the lay of the land for our big hiking expedition the next day. Pretty drive up, winding road among the trees, but cold, foggy and rainy at the top, no mountain view. We wonder if we will see Mount Rainier at all during this trip.The next morning we rush out at 7:30 to meet our friends at the Copper Creek Inn. Elle is ecstatic to see her friend. We fill up on pancakes and orange juice, and coffee for the adults. Up the mountain to the Paradise Visitor Center for an amazing, challenging hike with unbelievable mountain views. We take the Upper Skyline Trail to the Golden Gate Loop – it’s a3.5 hour incredible hike. The kids are so happy they run the whole four miles, which is steep up and down. The mountain is “out” the whole time (meaning we can see the summit clearly) and the landscape is full of wildflowers. We even cross some snow fields. We see marmots and begging chipmunks.
We enjoy a late lunch at the Paradise Lodge. We watch the park film and the kids complete their junior ranger badges. After driving though more of the scenic park, we stop at the Longmire Lodge for dessert: ice cream sundaes for the kids, cobbler and cake for the adults. We say good bye to our friends who have to return to Seattle that night. What an amazing day. We wish we had more time at the park. Mt. Rainier will rank as one of our favorite places on the trip. But now we need to head to the Pacific coast and see our third National Park in Washington: Olympic.
