Going to Mt. Rainier is an annual event for us. This year we decided to go to the Sunrise (east) side of the mountain. The campground within the park isn't a good one for Howie (too uneven, and too crowded anyway). We found this forest service campground a few years ago, and enjoyed the quiet, shaded sites. It's called Silver Springs. Since we arrived on a Tuesday, there were plenty of sites to choose from, although most had reserved signs for the upcoming weekend. The sites are large, well spaced and very shady from large trees. We welcomed the shade since it was over 80 degrees! (Judy's melting point.) It is right beside the one and only road here, so it's a bit noisy from traffic during the day, but not at night.
Hard to see stars at night with this canopy above!
All of this space was ours.
The best part of going to Sunrise is how close the mountain seems. We parked at the end of the lot so we could spread out a bit, unrolling the recently repaired awning to enjoy lunch after hiking.
If you look closely at the right side of the mountain, you can see steam...not clouds...coming up from a vent. We watched this off and on over the 3 days we were there.
Our first hike, up the side of the hill....not a lot of climbing, but starting out at 6400' and hot sun made it challenging enough.
Happy hikers! (yeah, right)...but happy to be out in the mountain air and sunshine. The air smelled like the trees and bushes...very different up here.
A view of the parking lot from our trail.
Harris had a similar picture taken from the Paradise side made into a canvas for Judy last year...so we're comparing the view here.
More pictures of the steam venting from the volcano.
A view of the valley...along the Silver Fir trail.
We only went for a few days to escape Seattle's heat. Friday night, Harris went outside to get a shot of the moon at home. It was bright orange.
