Return To Paradise

Hiking at Mt. Rainier last weekend was so amazing, I decided to go back again this weekend and check out some more of the trails.  This time I went up with my friend Laura.  On the way up, I told her that I wanted to see a bear....not too close, but close enough to get photos.  We arrived at the Paradise Visitor's Center just after 8:00 am and started getting our gear out of the car.  A couple came walking by and the man said, "You have a bear watching you..." and pointed up on the hill behind the Visitor's Center.  Sure enough, way up above us we could see him...a black bear wandering around near the Alta Vista Lookout, where I hiked to with Lauren last weekend.  I was all kinds of excited!!  We quickly grabbed the rest of our gear out of the car and headed up the Skyline Trail, on a quest to get close enough for me to get some photos of him, but not so close that we would become a mid-morning snack.

Seeing Mt. Rainier from the freeway in the city, I always thought it was amazing the way it just seemed to float above everything.  The first time I saw it from the Visitor's Center, I remember feeling like it was so close....I was just a kid at the time, and I didn't realize that at the Visitor's Center you are actually on the mountain. As we climbed the steps behind the Visitor's Center to the trailhead, I was taken back to the first time I had been to Paradise.  I was just as awestruck as an adult as I was all those years ago.  It is a beautiful mountain, and being able to see it up close is one of my favorite things about living in the Pacific Northwest.

As we started up the Skyline Trail, I told Laura about my trip up the previous weekend, and how I wanted to try conquering some of the more challenging trails, but that I wasn't sure if I was ready for them.  Always the optimist, she suggested we just take it slow and see how it went.  We looked at the map and decided we would take the Skyline Trail up towards Sluiskin Falls and turn around if the climb got too steep.

The weather was perfect and there was just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away.  The lupine was even more spectacular than it was last weekend and it smelled amazing!!

Looking down on the Visitors Center from high up on the Skyline Trail motivated me to keep going, and we managed to maintain a pretty steady pace.

Eventually we made it to the Stevens-Van Trump Historical Monument above Sluiskin Falls.  The memorial is a stone and concrete bench honoring the first two climbers to ascend Mt. Rainier in 1870.  The bench sits in the spot where Chief Sluiskin is said to have waited for the climbers to return from their climb.  This spot is about 2 miles from, and 500 feet above, the Paradise Visitors Center.  While sitting here, we met a very friendly man and his daughter. He has been hiking the trails at Mt. Rainier for years, and he enthusiastically offered us a history lesson.

We left the monument and continued upward.  The trail climbed gradually, but relentlessly.  I was determined to challenge myself but I took it slow and stopped as often as I needed to to catch my breath and take in the view.  At this elevation, the fields of wildflowers were replaced by rocks and snow, and at one point we had to scramble up a snow bank where the trail was still completely covered.

The mountain loomed above us, and I couldn't resist pulling out my zoom lens and getting some close-up shots of the huge glaciers.

The view is just incredible from up here.  It's hard to capture, even in a panoramic photo.

We climbed again briefly and arrived at the top of the Golden Gate Trail.  The elevation here is 6,400 feet.  We had climbed 4 miles and gained 1,000 feet in elevation.  I realized this is about the same as Rattlesnake Ledge in North Bend, which I have hiked a couple of times this summer, but for some reason, our hike on Mt. Rainier felt longer and steeper.  Maybe it had to do with the higher elevation, or the vastness of the landscape.

Not gonna lie...standing at this spot, at the top of a trail that had looked so daunting to me a week ago, was pretty awesome.

We were both pretty tired and had heard from a few people passing by that the snow made hiking any higher tricky without better gear, so we decided to head down the Golden Gate Trail rather than continue on the Skyline Trail.  The steep swithcbacks down through the basin made me glad that we had chosen a more gradual climb up.  Next summer, I would love to try hiking the same loop but in the opposite direction, climbing up the Golden Gate Trail and coming down the Skyline Trail.

We reached the bottom of the Golden Gate Trail pretty quickly and decided to head over to the Visitors Center, where Laura suggested insisted that we get our Junior Ranger Certifications.  This is an activity intended for kids visiting Mt. Rainier National Park, but we had a lot of fun filling out the activity books, and the Park Ranger who swore us in and presented us with our Certificates and Junior Ranger Badges was a good sport about it.

After being certified as Official Junior Rangers, we decided to check out the Nisqually Glacier trail, which is a very short and easy hike from the Visitors Center.

It was an amazing day of hiking and I am so glad that I decided to challenge myself...it was tough but so worth it!!  This is likely my last trip up to Mt. Rainier this summer...it is a full day and my schedule is pretty busy...but I look forward to coming back and exploring more of the trails next summer.

Oh, and about that bear...he managed to elude us all day, but we heard a few stories about him.  Maybe next summer I'll get my bear photo!!  :)