J saw Mount Rainier out of a distant office window in Seattle last year so we decided we had to visit, having done little research we booked ourselves into one of the lodges in the park.
Mount Rainier in Washington state is 10,000 ft tall, and is the tallest in the Cascades mountain range.
When you enter the park you’re at about 2000 ft above sea level. You then climb and climb through different ecosystems till you get to ‘Paradise’ and alpine meadow at about 7000 ft. From there if you want to get to the top you’re on ‘Shanks's pony’.
This waterfall starts on one side and then crosses under the road;
It’s not called Rainier for nothing;
What we couldn’t believe was the amount of snow still by the side of the road. And this is mid June.
Which only got deeper as you got close to Paradise. It was time to put on just about all the warm weather clothes we owned, layers of t-shirts, fleece and then outer jacket.
P decided to wander up the mountain a little but it was quite tough going. Lots of serious climbers and even some skiers
Paradise lodge in the snow; yes you can just about see the roofline above the snow. And yes this is still mid June!
Jakki in the snow with Mount Rainier peak in the background. Can’t quite see the top but can see quite high.
So we discovered that this year they had 680 inches of snow (a little, but not much, above average). The most snow they’ve recorded in over 1000 inches in a season!
I guess this explains why they still have snow late in June.
Back down the mountain a little to our lodge we were greeted by the welcoming committee;
These two hung around the lodge for the duration of our stay. I think they liked us.
No comments:
Post a Comment