Mt. Rainier

Hi Everybody,

We finally made the Mt. Rainier trip we planned on last weekend- probably better off since we had a good week of sun and a lot more snow had melted. We may go again next weekend with Grandma and Grandpa, but we wanted to make sure we had a trip where we could do the hikes they would disapprove of. So we got to hike across snow, across waterfalls, and up to the edges of cliffs, sorry G&GG.

We tried to do a loop trail to Faraway Rock, starting from the west side of Reflection Lake.

Then we lost track of the trail pretty quickly on the High Lakes side and had to go back.

We decided we still wanted to see Faraway Rock (I mean how far could it be?) so we hiked to the other side of Reflection Lake along the road. We also discovered what happens when the person who volunteers to take your photo is handed the camera on movie mode.

We soldiered on, up a pretty steep slope until we got to the Rock, which had one of the best views we've ever seen at Rainier.

Eden already seems excited about the Wonderland Trail, but if she wants Mom or Dad to come with her we will need to get into much better shape.

On our way back to the car, we finally got a picture to show why it is called reflection lake.

We ended up in a very large traffic jam trying to get to Paradise, so we ended up leaving and heading down to Longmire where we had a pretty nice view to go with our sandwiches.

The mountain always gets washed out but here is the close-up.

We did a quick trip along the trail of shadows, and then back we went. Only one more week of vacation before school starts again, I'm suspicious that the frequency of posts will diminish then but I'll do my best.

take care,

John