Mt. Rainier West- Part 2 (9/15/24)

 Day 5

After hiking quite a few days in a row, we decided we needed to take a day off from it, so we looked for a scenic drive outside the park. There isn’t much, but we drove into the national forest anyway. It was pretty dense brush, with not much to see.

Every once in a while a view would open up, and we were able to see Mount St. Helens in the distance.

Cell phone cameras being what they are these days, I usually can’t justify carrying my small Panasonic camera around with me. Most times, I don’t even take my big camera either. The biggest difference in the pictures is if I want to zoom in on a subject. Playing around one day, I took some close ups of Mount Rainier. I would not have gotten these pictures with my phone.

I actually zoomed in on some “dots” on a glacier that turned out to be people hiking, but I deleted the picture by accident.

                                             Day 6

 

Part of the reason the parking lots at Paradise are always crowded is that many hiking trails start from there, so people don’t just come for an hour and then leave. Of course, one of the trails we wanted to hike originates from there, so we sucked it up and drove up the hill at 6:45 am. We got one of the last spots in the main lot. It also happens to be Labor Day weekend now, which didn’t help.

The trail we chose was Panorama Point. The name implies there might be a good view once you get there but in reality, the views started at the trailhead and never quit.

I kept thinking “follow the yellow brick road” during this part of the trail…

We saw more wildlife on this trail than we had seen all week-in fact, in this section a black bear cub ran across the trail between Paul and I. Everyone froze, waiting to see if mom came up behind him, but he was running so fast, I think she was ahead of him and he was catching up. Very cool.

We also saw a mountain goat, a deer, and several marmots.

At “Glacier Viewpoint” there were excellent views of the nearby …glaciers- we noticed after we took the pictures that although they are in color, they look like they are in black and white. There was a pretty cool waterfall across the way.

I think this was my favorite trail in the park- although it wasn’t that easy- 5 miles and 1500 ft of gain, there was a lot of bang for the buck in the view department. Paul’s favorite trail was the one we did the following day, our last day in the park.

                                                   Day 7

The trail to Comet Falls is 5 miles round trip, with 1600 feet of gain. So, a repeat of the day before. Luckily we are in better hiking shape now, so its manageable for us.

We passed several waterfalls along the way to Comet.

Of course, many times when hiking to a waterfall, you have to go UP- and this trail was no exception.

When we got to this one, we assumed it was Comet Falls, but in fact, we still had a quarter mile to go…

We finally made it- it was worth the effort.