Mount Rainier National Park
It’s been a few years since I toured Mount Rainier National Park, but I’ll never forget how the mountain dominated the landscape traveling into and out of Seattle.
As I was driving north into Washington’s largest city you can’t help but notice how massive Mount Rainier is. At an evaluation of 14,410 it is one of the largest mountains in North America. An active volcano, Rainier is one of the many active volcanoes in the Cascade Range. Because of its proximity to Seattle, geologists consider it on of the most potentially hazard
ous volcanoes in North America.
That fact shouldn’t keep you from visiting this beautiful and rewarding national park. There are 26 named glaciers on Rainier and snow was visible throughout the park during my mid-July visit.
There are five developed areas in Mount Rainier National Park and I wish I could say I visited all five but I had to limit my one-day visit to just a couple.
Longmire is located in the southwest corner of the park and is just a few miles from the Nisqually Entrance where I drove into the park. This is the original park headquarters and many of the original park buildings are still standing. There are several roadside attractions that are worth visiting in this part of the park including Christine Falls, Glacier Bridge and Ricksecker Point Road, a 6-mile, one-way road that offers fantastic views of Mount Rainier.
Longmire is also the home of several hiking trails of varying length. There are multi-mile hikes that will take your to Narada Falls or shorter hikes that will take you to other water falls and old-growth forests.
If you continue on from Longmire you run into the next developed area – Paradise. This portion of the park is famous for its glorious views and wildflower meadows. It was at the Paradise Jackson Visitor Center that I saw my first mountain goats and along with several other photographers got close-up views of the a mother and her baby.
Other highlights of Paradise include Reflection Lakes and Inspiration Point, two points that offer unique views of the mountain.
Because of time limitations I didn’t continue on to the other parts of the park but I can’t wait to get back and see Ohanapesoch, Sunrise, and Carbon/Mowich on Rainier’s eastern side.
And to once again marvel at how dominating Mount Rainier really is.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
mynationalparksproject 
No Responses Yet to “Mount Rainier National Park”