We finally reached Mount Rainier about 1130. Mount Rainier was the fifth designated National Park. The United States has 59 national parks, which are operated by the National Park Service, an agency of the Department of the Interior. National parks must be established by an act of the United States Congress. The first national park, Yellowstone, was signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872, followed by Mackinac National Park in 1875 (decommissioned in 1895), and then Sequoia and Yosemite in 1890. Mount Rainier was the first to be designed specifically as a national park, so the roads are laid out to enhance enjoyment of the park rather than just the most efficient transit. According to the video at the visitors’ center, when you go around a bend in the road and see a majestic view, that was intentionally designed into the road system by the architects and engineers.
Soon after entering the park we took a hike near the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center (closed due to sequestration) to see the hot springs and the Silver Falls. According to the National Park Service, there is so much vegetation in Mount Rainier National Park that there is more biomass here than in most tropical rain forests. I can believe that from this short hike. We saw huge, tall pines that were more than a couple of hundred years old.
Part of the area we hiked through had initially been developed as a rest camp with 30 cabins where visitors enjoyed the “restorative” powers of the hot springs. Today the cabins are gone and the area is returning to its natural site, but you can get close enough to touch the hot water coming out of the ground.
This was a 3.5-mile hike over hilly terrain, but it was well worth the walk. The falls were quite impressive.
Those two little specks at the top of the falls are Tom and Sam.
After a couple of hours in the Ohanapecosh area we continued driving to the Paradise Visitors Center on Mount Rainier itself. We came around a corner and were greeted by our first full view of the mountain.
Along the way to Paradise, we stopped to see this “box canyon.” On this very short hike we saw where the river has carved itself through the rock and also where glaciers have smoothed out the rock around the top of the canyon. The river is about 115 feet below us where I took this picture. Just a little farther away it was 185 feet down.
Finally we made it to the Paradise Visitors Center. After an obscenely-priced meal at the cafeteria, we walked a little way up the Paradise trail. When the snow melts you have to stay on designated trails, but while the snow is four or five feet deep (as it was this day), you can wander freely. Way up to the right we could see people body surfing down the steep hillsides.
From the Paradise area, Tom, Sam, and I took a hike to the Nisqually Vista, from which we could see the Nisqually glacier. The trail was invisible other than the poles stuck in the ground. We “power walked” the two miles along the icy trail.
Sam had some trouble staying on her feet, but her falls were quite acrobatic. Tommy was laughing so hard the tears in his eyes made it hard for him to walk.
This is the view that greeted us at the end of the hike. Behind the kids you can see where the glacier has carved out parts of the mountain.
The last thing we stopped to see before heading to Oregon was the Narada Falls. This was an unplanned stop, but well worth the time.
This picture doesn’t really do justice to these Falls. They were enormous. Where the water crashed below, a dense mist billowed up to twenty or thirty feet above where I took this picture. That’s why the picture looks a little foggy.
Tomorrow we’re off to explore the Oregon coast.
