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| On the road to Mt Rainier |
In Seattle we learned that Mt rainier dominates the skyline so much that it loomms large in the minds of Seattlites, so much that they just refer to it as “The Mountain”, and they know it’s a fine day when “the Mountain is out”. Unfortunately for us, today the Mountain stayed in…
We woke to grey skies and much cooler weather. Actually we also woke with slightly grey fuzzy heads,, extended blogging last night followed by issues with a light that refused to go out (!) and nearby sirens meant that sleep was a long time coming. However, we hit the road shortly after breakfast when Neil collected our Jeep Cherokee from the nearby Alamo office.
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| Neil trying to find the top half of the mountain |
We drove south through more pleasant, leafy suburbs and stopped briefly at lakeside Seward Park so that Neil could set up the Go Pro to record the journey. The drive to Mount Rainier National park’s northern entrance only took a couple of hours and as we climbed through thick green pine forest the temperature dropped – our first stop at a roadside viewpoint had us scrabbling for all the clothing that we could easily lay our hands on.
At Sunrise Visitor center the temp was 11 degrees C , so we were happy to do a brisk walk along a nearby trail to try to see as much of Mount Rainier as it was prepared to reveal today. The entire of the top of the mountain was obscured by rolling clouds but we had an excellent view of a few of it’s 23 glaciers. At this stage of the year, when the snow cover is all gone, the glaciers look a little grey and grubby under overcast skies but they’re still pretty impressive for all that.
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| This is what Paradise looks like, or at least the interior of Paradise Lodge. |
We grabbed lunch at Sunrise of ham rolls ( on sweet hamburger buns… NOT a great success ) before we hit the road again for the drive on to Paradise. No, we hadn’t driven over a cliff, Paradise is the name of the major headquarters of the park. Here they have a huge, and attractive new visitor centre as well as a classic National Park Lodge/Hotel. I call it classic because it follows the pattern that most of them are built by, grand open halls , with soaring ceilings, built of huge logs and usually graced with at least one massive stone fireplace. Paradise Lodge has two such fireplaces, one at each end of the hall and lots of seating nearby. Generally we try to stay in the Lodges within the parks because they really are special and wonderful places to stay, however Paradise had a 2 night minimum at this time of the year and we simply couldn’t afford the time to stay here for an extra night. Maybe next time!
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| There’s a Bear in There! |
We had planned to do a walk at paradise but the trails here are all designed to take you higher for even finer views of the mountain. With the mountain under cloud there just didn’t seem much point, and I was also a little put off by the sign in the visitor cente advising that Black Bears had been seen feeding in the vicinity. Yikes!
From Paradise we headed back down the mountain to the western entrance and stopped along the way to see the Narada Falls. The falls are crossed by a pretty granite bridge, one of the many such within the park built back in the 1930’s by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corp. The Corp was one of FDR’s “New Deal” government projects funded to provide work for men during the Great Depression. Many fo the older National Parks have wonderful stone buildings, fences, gateways, tunnels and bridges thanks to FDR.
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| Me on the bridge at Narada Falls |
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| Hotel decor |
It was a short drive from the Falls to Nisqually Lodge, our home for tonight. It’s a pleasant low-key family run hotel with a real mountain feel. You know you are in the home of Mountain Men when the walls of the lobby are decorated with the heads of deer, elk and one colossal moose!
We decided to continue with the mountain theme for dinner by trying the hotel manager’s recommendation for dinner – the “Wildberry” restaurant’s specialty is a “Taste of the Himalayas”, and we thoroughly enjoyed our Nepali specialties. The Nepali bread was very similar to Naan but much lighter and fluffier and absolutely delicious.
We leave the area tomorrow and head south… and the weather is predicted grey again tomorrow so I’m afraid Mt Rainier has eluded us … this time. And yes, we’re already discussing a next time, because we have to come back some days to see the place when the Mountain is Out!