Week #9 The Rainier National Park
“Of all the fire mountains which like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest.” — John Muir
Soo true! Spending the long weekend in the Rainier National Park was a cool idea. Here too we needed to fight our battle with the beurocracy - booking camp sites. At the National Parks you need to visit the Ranger station at the start of your hike and book the camp sites there. We did not really plan our trek as depending on the camping possibilities the ranger would have sassisted us with designing our trip. So it happened. We drove to the closest ranger station at the Carbon river. Surprisingly the ranger was rather dull and not helpful at all. However we managed to obtain a permit to camp in the park for the following two night.
We have managed to design a small round trip where partially we walked on the Wonderland trail. The Wonderland Trail (WT) is 93 miles (150kms) long and encircles Mount Rainier. It is a strenuous hike with lots of elevation gain and loss, through lowland forests and valleys and into high alpine and sub-alpine areas.
I can confirm that the title was wery well assigned, walking there I have felt like Alice in Wonderland.
First day we did a relaxed 8 km hike with not much elevation gain to reach Ipsut camp ground.
On our way we have followed the Carbon river.
Second day was long and beautiful with views of The Volcano.
Moritz in action: washing dishes while risking his life on the rocks.
So many huge mushrooms on the way - No, we did not eat them:)
Somehow Moritz always finds the way to collect new friends on the way.
Late evening we reached Eagels nest camp ground - our home for the second night. It was already late when we arrived so next morning we explored the surrounding waterfall.
By lunchtime we arrived to the Milwoch lake. Yes my Thermos is coming with me everywhere. More on food and our mountaneering diet will follow soon.
As a result of long hesitation we decided to climb the Tolmie peak after lunch. We had a long walk ahead of us to get back to the car. The weather was clear and from the top we had amazing views to Rainier. Best decision ever to make this!
On the top of the Tolmie peak there is a small house - the fire lookout.
Many of the alpine recreation trails that we enjoy today were originally constructed by the Conservation Construction Corps to lead to sites where they built fire lookouts. At the height of their time in the 1930’s there were between 700-800 of them in Washington.
The vast majority of these structures have since been removed or destroyed. Many of them were burned by lightning strikes. It was often decided that the cost of preserving these structures would far exceed their historic value. A few have been protected and in many cases these last remaining lookouts have been adopted by an outside party or individual who takes the responsibility for repairs and structural safety. A fraction of the remaining lookouts are still used for fire observation during the summer.
Part of the trek was within the rainforest (again). I have seen huge trees before too, however in this area they just seemed to be even huger.
Behind me is the root of a fallen tree, I am trying to make its size visible here.
