Judy likes to spend her birthday at Mt. Rainier. This year the weather cooperated beautifully...high 70's, then 80's...even 90's! The only problem was it fell on a weekend. The campgrounds were full. We first tried White River campground on the Sunrise side of the mountain. Full. The ranger told us everything was full. So, back down the mountain we went, towards 3 forest service campgrounds. The first, (and nicest) Silver Springs, was full. The second, Buck Creek, had room, but was not inviting at all. (and after all, this was a birthday weekend!) The third, the Dalles, had one space left. So we quickly grabbed it up and set out to enjoy our weekend.
There was a sign at the end of the camping loop that said, "9 and 1/2 ft Douglas fir", so we walked down a short trail to see the big tree. As you can see from the sign, the diameter is 9 and 1/2 feet, the height is 235 ft, and the tree is estimated to be 700 years old. They grow them big out here!
A picture of Howie in the only campsite. The only problem was, this entire camp was very close to the highway. We had our heads toward the road, and it was a busy road for most of the time. Not exactly the peace and silence we'd experienced before. And then, the people across from us had 2 yappie dogs. The dogs yapped and barked and barked and yapped. We said, "boy, we could have stayed home and heard this!"
All the sites had been reserved for the entire weekend, but on Saturday morning, these people were packing up and moving out. When we went to talk to them, they told us they were camping with their daughter's dogs, who were obviously not used to the great outdoors, and they didn't sleep at all last night. They were going home. They offered us their spot, and since it was a little further from the road noise, we moved right in.
After "moving", we headed up the mountain to Sunrise to do a little hiking. Good thing we got an early start. The parking lot was filling up, and later, became more than full. Sunny weekends will do that! The hiking was excellent...sunny, hot, but with just enough of a breeze to keep us comfortable and the bugs away. We hiked to Frozen Lake and looped back towards the parking via Shadow Lake. We were glad we had taken our poles with us, because we had to slip and slide over 3 different patches of snow on this lower trail. We met a ranger coming towards us on the trail who asked us if we had seen the bear. "No!, where?" "Back at the junction of the trails"...must have just missed it. It sounded like this particular bear had been making a nuisance of himself there.
Sunrise is definitely the place to go for gorgeous pictures of Mt. Rainier.
Saturday night we talked to some people next to us who had been to Crystal Mountain, next to Rainier that day. They told us the gondola ride was fantastic, so on Sunday morning we decided to give it a try. Crystal Mountain is a huge ski resort in the winter, and lures tourists there in the summer with this ride and various hikes. Again, we were lucky to get there fairly early in the morning, and could get on without any wait. When we came down a couple of hours later, the lines were very long. The gondola is quick and quiet, and whisked us to the top in a matter of minutes. The view from the top is spectacular. You see Mt. Adams in the south, Mt. St. Helens in between, Mt. Rainier right in front of you, the Olympics a bit to the north, Mt. Baker due north, and Glacier Peak if there isn't too much haze.
We hiked a bit along the ridgeline trail to get the great views, then found a shady spot to sit and eat some lunch before riding back down the mountain and heading home.
It was a great birthday weekend.
Total miles driven = 310.
