Hiking

We had a great hike at Mt Rainier. At 2.5 hrs, it was a bit of a long drive for a hike, but totally worth it. We drove to Longmire on the southern side of Rainier, took the free shuttle up to Paradise, and hiked up the western side of the Skyline Trail to Panorama Point. The conditions were perfect: mid 70s, clear skies, and just enough snow on the trail to make it a bit challenging and fun.


We took a break at Glacier Vista (about 2/3 the way up) for a snack. Immediately afterward, we started up a long snowy slope to Panorama Point. We turned around at Panorama and descended the way we came up. We would have liked to continue on the trail and descend on the eastern half (completing the loop), but we were warned it still had too much snow. And good thing we heeded the warning. The descent on the snowy areas was fairly difficult with Ryan on my back....


Mt Rainier more than made up for our disappointing hike a few weeks earlier at Mt Washington. First, I had gotten lost and wasted half an hour finding the parking lot. Once I found the right area to park, the only directions offered was on a crummy hand-drawn map (with no distance scale). The map directed us up a gravel path for some unspecified distance and then make a left turn on some unmarked trailhead. We probably hiked to an elevation gain of 1200 ft and turned around. Afterwards, we stopped at a diner in North Bend made famous by the show Twin Peaks. On the show, the main character frequently commented on the diner's "damn fine cup of coffee" and cherry pie. We tried both and they were in fact damn fine.....