Mount Rainier, the *BEST* day of our trip......... ever!!

Well in my opinion the best day of our trip was Rainer (I am sure that SW would agree). So we left Mount Saint Helens and drove towards Rainier national park. There was some national forest just before the park, and you know what that means: free camping! So as soon as we hit national forest I was ready to just get out of the car and throw the tent up anywere, but Sarah was thinking a little less pragmatically and wanted to go explore the back-woods side roads. So we drove down this old logging road that had a sign that said "Bridge Out". About half a mile down the road was the closed bridge (sagging from major flooding that Rainier had last fall. Rainier national park had millions of dollars of road wash out from a major flood last fall we learned and it almost did not open this year). We had reached paradise! We found the best camp spot in the world. Beautiful camping spots, right next to a mountain river with a sand beach. The river is fed from Rainer's glaciers and was literally emerald green because it was so clean. We fell in love with that spot, and set up the tent.

The next day we drove up to Rainier and WOW! It is my new favorite Mountain (you're still cool Colden). This dormant volcano juts up from nowhere, and totally dominates the skyline. At 14,410 feet above sea level it is snowcapped all year with a total of 77 glaciers on it. It has green wooded valleys, beautiful glacial melt waterfalls, lakes, streams, an abundance of wildlife, an alpine zone, permanent glaciers, and its own weather system. Rainier is so tall that all of the weather fronts hit it, the air rises to forms clouds, and then rains on it. We were SO lucky to hit it when we did. Driving in just took my breath away. White milky clouds started to form as we got closer, but it did not matter. We went to the information center (appropriately called "Paradise") and found out that the best hike for us was called the Skyline trail to Panorama Point.

The trail started off as a paved sidewalk into clouds. It gained 2000 feet in the first two miles, so we were getting moist from literally walking "into" the clouds. We saw a fox, marmots, and two deer fighting. They looked like adolescent siblings who were just playing, but they kept locking antlers and driving each other around, totally indifferent to our presence twenty feet away.

The next little bit was a standard hike and then WOW! We climbed ABOVE the clouds and entered the Alpine zone. This was my first expeience like this with Sarah, and it was my best to date. We were above the trees walking on rocks, next to fragile plants and glaciers. We walked over glaciers, threw snow balls, and saw waterfalls. The single best moment of the trip was looking straight at Rainier's summit rising out of the clouds. The tops of the clouds looked exactly like they look when viewed from a plane - like a fuzzy wool blanket over the world. The Alpine zone was so lush and alive with plant life, so green and yet so rocky. So rugged to survive up there, yet so fragile (a single boot print could kill one hundred years of growth). As we neared Panorama Point we saw a mountain goat! He was so chill that he didn't care how close we were to him. He just looked at us, continued eating, and then walked towards us. He came within 10 feet of us, crossed the trail, and continued on to graze next to us. He had two horns that stood straight up with a slight curve and had pure white fur.

Once we got to Panorama Point I just about crapped my pants (metaphorically) at how beautiful the view was. The clouds were 1000 feet below us, the sky was pure blue (not a cloud in the sky! well... above us) We could see pinnacles of neighboring peaks sticking out like stalagmites from the milky cloud blanket. Dominating the skyline was the tops of volcanoes: we could see Mount Adams, Mount Saint Helens, and Mount Hood (which was over 100 miles away!) Apparantly you can see the tip of Mount Shasta from the summit of Rainier, but most of it is blocked by the curvature of the earth since it is over 200 miles away. Now the cool thing about volcanoes is that they look more impressive than other mountains since they just stand up out of nowhere. Most mountians have ridges and other mountains connected to them, but volcanoes are like a single mountain with nothing around it, so it rises from the surrounding landscape more dramatically.

So when it was all said and done we made it above 7,000 feet in elevation. We did not summit: it is an expedition to summit, not a simple day hike. You need full alpine gear to summit: ice axe, crampons, crevasse rescue techniques, etc. Is it out of the realm of possibility for me? No, definitely not. It typically takes 3 days to summit. More than anything I want to go back and summit. It would have to be the focus of a future trip since it is such a commitment, and it is now one of my future dreams. But it did not matter at all. We had a best day of our trip (in my opinion), and one of the best moments that we have ever shared together. After our hike was finished we drove back to our campspot near the glacial melt emerald green river, sat on the sand beach and watched the stars.

Thank you Mount Rainier!