Spray Park

With a 5:30 am airport dropoff for Brian scheduled, I (Tom) decided to just keep driving south to spend the day at Spray Park, in the northwest corner of Mt Rainier National Park. It's a special place that I've visited countless times, and am never disappointed. Arriving at the trailhead at 7 am gave me a head start on any crowds, and I had nice, peaceful, lonely hike up (perfect!!). After a traverse through the forest, the trail climbs up through Spray Park's ever expanding meadows and views. The flower show wasn't as intense as I've seen, but was still quite nice, and constantly changing as I continued to climb. At one point, I turned around to enjoy the view, and watched a bear descend down through the meadow, across the trail, and disappear into the woods. At the top, I headed off trail to get to a lake that's hidden high in the park. Quite stark and beautiful. The way out was a bit more populated, but not obnoxiously so. Just another awesome day in the mountains!