We here in the Pacific Northwest are blessed with one of the most wonderful places on Earth ... Mt Rainier. While we know the National Park well and sometimes take our access to it for granted, it never ceases to leave us slack-jawed with the massive scale and incredible, varied beauty. So, we once again found ourselves drawn there to revisit a couple of our favorite day hikes ... Spray Park and Tolmie Peak.
Tom has long considered Spray Park to be his favorite flower-garden in the Park. It's tucked in the relatively remote northwest corner of the Park, accessed by 15- 20 miles of logging roads, and so is typically less crowded. Our trip started in clear blue skies, but as we hiked through the lovely forest over and up to the park, the mountain disappeared into a bank of low clouds and fog. The silver lining: we got to pay more attention to the billions of wild flowers!! By the time we reached the upper end of the park, the breeze was cold and damp, so we didn't get to relax in glorious sunshine, as we had envisioned. After a snack and a brief rest, we turned around and got to enjoy the flowers a second time!!
After a less-than-ideal night at the Mowich Lake campground, we packed up and got a fairly early start up to the Tolmie Peak lookout. The trail initially follows Mowich Lake, with peak-a-boo views through the trees of The Mountain. After reaching beautiful Eunice Lake in a couple of miles, the views start opening up. Upon reaching the lookout at the top, the unobstructed views of the mountain are outstanding. No clouds this time! We got to catch some serious sun as we absorbed the views and snacked. On the way back, we stopped at Eunice Lake to soak our feet in the warm shallows.
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| Mountain Daisy and Cottongrass |
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Mountain Daisies and Lupines
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Relatively rare White Indian Paintbrush and Lupines
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Indian Paintbrush and Yellow Lousewart
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Flower-lined trail
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Indian Paintbrush and Yellow Lousewart
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| Cottongrass (a first for Tom) |
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Semi-comatose bees on Indian Thistle
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Mt Rainier beyond Mowich Lake
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Eunice Lake
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| Detail of Mt Rainier snow and ice |
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| Eunice Lake |
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| Tolmie Peak Lookout |
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| Mt Rainier beyond Eunice Lake |
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| Blue and White (relatively rare) Lupines |
Activities
- Spray Park dayhike
- Tolmie Peak dayhike
"Oh Wow!" Moments
- The continuously unfathomable flowers in Spray Park.
- The size of The Mountain!!
Random Scenes
- On the little side trip to Spray Falls, a patch of purple thistles appeared. The odd thing was, most had bees almost motionless on them. It looked like they had found the motherload and overdone it a bit. Bee heaven, I guess.
- After arriving at the normally empty walk-in camp ground (not much more than a glorified gravel parking lot with a few picnic tables), we were stunned to find it bustling and nearly full. Must be the COVID camping rush! Upon our return from the hike, it was even more full. Then, after dinner, 3 big vans brought 20 army guys (sans uniform) and their associated noise and energy. Not sure what they were doing up there ... perhaps trail maintenance or some sort of training. But group size in the backcountry is limited to 12 (I believe), so it's kinda unclear. The 4 guys camped next to us were trail runners planning for a big day. And a 6:30 am departure, which meant a 5 am alarm. On top of that, one of them had an air mattress that announced every roll-over all night long! Other campers/hikers were also up and about ... all before 6 am. Just kinda crazy!
- Eating breakfast at our car prior to heading up Tolmie Peak, the gents parked behind us headed off, one chomping on a banana. Nothing odd. But, as he reached the beginning of the trail, he looked confused as to what to do with his peel. No trash can, but oh, over there, a nice little ditch across the road! Perfect! We contemplated picking it up and putting it under his windshield wiper, but figured he'd know it was us, and perhaps do something nasty to our car!
- Near the top of Tolmie Peak, a marmot was climbing an almost vertical hillside. Essentially cliffs. We've seen lots of marmots, and they love rocks to sun on, but normally they're in much less steep terrain ... think boulders in meadows. He seemed to be a climber, ascending a crack route! We were glad to see him, though, since we'd not seen any in Spray Park (a rarity) the day before.
Sleeps
- Mowich Lake walk-in campground. Not great, but mostly functional.
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