Before summer comes to a close and the weather starts to change, there was one thing that we needed to do now that we live in Washington. Take to the road and head to Mt. Rainier National Park! This snow capped mountain is more than visible from where we are and is a iconic piece of the Seattle skyline, almost as famous as the Space Needle. Its a close drive, about an hour and a half from us and worth every moment in the car to get there.
Today was the perfect day for a trip to Mt. Rainier. The weather was beautiful, sunny and without the threat of thunderstorms or other cloudy weather that could block our view of the mountain. With the help of Abby and Ellie, we packed up a cooler for a picnic and loaded up the car for a day out. Abby has been fascinated by Mt. Rainier, ever since her first trip to Seattle so she was ready and very excited to get a move on.
The drive up was beautiful and very uneventful, which we were happy to about. One of the beautiful things about Mt. Rainier is the journey you take from the Nisqually Entrance up to the Paradise area. You start low, driving through thick cedar rain forests (much like the ones you would see in Olympic and Glacier) and quickly climb up into pine forests. By the time you reach Paradise you are up in the sub-alpine and alpine terrain. Its amazing and breath taking, especially when you see it for the first time.
The views on our way up were spectacular. The mountain was surrounded by a thin layer of clouds that surrounded the base, which seemed to appear from inside of the mountain. Aside from those clouds, the sky was perfectly clear. It certainly made for a beautiful picture or twelve. After a few photographic moments, we stopped at a picnic site just below Paradise for a bit of lunch and a break.
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| Shaun and his girls enjoying a spectacular day in Mt. Rainier National Park. The mountain is doing what it does best and creating its own set of clouds and weather. So pretty! |
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| Me and my girls enjoying the view and having a few giggles! |
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| Alpine meadows and Mt. Rainier |
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| Shaun decided that Belle should have a moment too! A little Beauty and the Beast/Sound of Music Moment. |
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| Close to the Paradise Visitor Center we stopped for a yummy picnic lunch. It might have been warm back home and in the sunshine, but sitting in the shade was a tad chilly. |
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| So there was this carrot, see… |
After lunch we made the final trek up to Paradise for a stop at the Visitor Center. That was the point in which Shaun and I were completely baffled. Our last trip to Mt. Rainier National Park was in May of 2008. The winter of 2007/2008 had been a very heavy one and the snow walls near Paradise rose about 8 ft. above our car. During that trip we stopped at the visitor center, which was still surrounded by snow but I knew what it looked like from prior trips with Shaun and with my parents and sister. When we arrived at Paradise with the girls, the Visitor Center that we knew of was gone. We drove in circles and couldn’t find it! We questioned if we were in the right place, which I knew we were, but how could you lose a building? Yes, it was surrounded by snow the last time we saw it but the terrain hadn’t changed that much or had it? Well, as it turns out in the summer of 2008, after all of that snow melted, the old visitor center was torn down and a new one was built. Shaun and I were kind of sad because the original building was pretty neat and even had an area where visitors could monitor the seismic activity of the mountain but eventually things change. Instead of being sad about this change we sucked it up and checked out the new center. In the end, Abby and Ellie really enjoyed it and that’s all that really matters.
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| Checking out Nature’s Compost. The girls giggled endlessly when they found out that a lot of natures compost is actually animal poop. Ahh to be kids! |
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| “Look mommy, a book that’s bigger than I am! Neat!” |
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| Sister’s cheesing it up in Paradise. |
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| A better picture with the “balcano” as Ellie called it. No one in the background and all the clouds around the mountain are gone! |
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| Beautiful waterfall near the end of the Paradise Valley Road. |
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| It may look empty now, but you don’t want to be on this bridge during a heavy spring runoff. |
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| Lovely cedar rain forests. |
After the stop in the Visitor Center, we took the one way loop through Paradise Valley. We were hoping to see some blooming wildflowers, but unfortunately we were about three weeks too late. Oh well, the waning colors were still beautiful! We decided from there that there wouldn’t be enough time to make it up to Sunset and back so we headed back out of the park the same we we came in. The girls had seen several people with ice cream up at the Paradise Visitor Center but we could not figure out where they were getting it, so on the way out we stopped at a small hotel, bakery and coffee shop for a nice cool treat.
We sat out on their big wrap around porch and watched the cars go by. We ate our ice cream in the late afternoon sun as a small breeze rustled through the trees. Some leaves started to fall and it was the first time I had noticed an ever so slight change in the weather. You could almost feel it, fall was starting to creep in. The breeze started warm but had a crisp feel underneath it all. I love the summer but as I sat there, I couldn’t help feel excited about our first fall in Washington with the girls. We sat there taking it all in and happily eating our ice cream. After that, we had two very happy and tuckered out kiddos who passed out on the way home.
The Wharton Adventures 