Camping, Part 2

Sorry part 2 is trailing so far behind part 1.  That's because my personal photographer and photo editor was exceedingly busy with a 3 week summer intensive ballet program and only recently got the photos finished.  She takes amazing pictures and edits really well, and yet I was still a bit disappointed when I saw them.  

I think it's because although the beauty of the things we saw is evident, you cannot experience the scope of it all in the photos.  You cannot feel the soft, cooling breeze and the spray of the waterfalls.  You cannot hear thunder of glacial water rushing over the boulders.  You cannot know what it feels like to stand somewhere so majestic and so grand that in comparison you feel your life and your problems and your worries are so insignificant.  Hopefully you have been somewhere like this at least once.  If you have, maybe you can feel these pictures.

HIKE #1

For our first hike we went up to Sunrise.  The elevation there is about 6700 ft. It's the highest spot you can drive to in Mt. Rainier National Park.  We went on an easy hike, nearly all level, and had the view of the summit almost the entire time.  We were also there for the only couple of hours all day that the summit was not obscured by clouds!

Thank goodness for big brothers when your little feet tire out.

The meadows were bursting with wildflowers.  It was so beautiful I told my kids I wanted to build a house, right there on the top of that little ridge because I was going to live there forever!  I get a little carried away when I'm in such places.

I'm seriously agonizing over which of these photographs to enlarge and hang in my house.  

Do you see that green speck at the bottom of the valley?  It's this amazing lake we saw from the trail at Sunrise, not far from the White River.  And we kept wondering where on earth that was and if there was anyway to get hike to it.  But we couldn't find anything about it. 


HIKE #2

The trail head for our next hike was just a few spaces away from our own campsite.  We were headed up to an overlook to see the snout of the Emmons glacier, and the beginning of the White River which flows from it.  This was billed as an easy hike.  Perhaps this was optimistically labeled easy by some professional mountaineer.  While it was "easy" to walk, no climbing gear and roped needed, it was 1.5 miles of straight uphill. When a walking trail needs switchbacks...  easy if you're not old and out of shape.  But SO worth the effort!

The information about the trail neglected to mention the MANY waterfalls right along the path.  At least 6 or 7 that I remember.  And each one got bigger than the last.  

This one went up much higher than we could photograph...without falling off the trail where it continued

under our path, crashing to the valley below.  Awesomeness.  

Zach just had to try going across this.  Which he did successfully.  But Alyssa almost cried before he was done because she was sure he was going to fall to his death.  

After crossing over the White River in a lovely spot, the trail continued.

Or what's left of the trail.  There was a warning that the train was eroding and to be careful.  The "trail" was about an 18" width of soft dirt with a drop off on the left.  It was worse coming down.  So glad we continued because at one point, Zach strayed just off the trail and called for us to come look.  

It was the lake!  The same one we had seen from Sunrise!  We couldn't find any safe path down to it, but WOW!  What a wonderful surprise to discover. No amount of editing does justice to the brilliant blue-green color of the water. They could have left me there and I would have died happy.  

We went a little farther and could see the valley below, the evidence of the 2006 flood, the White River, and to the far left of the photo...the "snow field" you see is really the end of the Emmons Glacier.  

We all had pictures taken here.  The scenery was so stunning, and the scope so huge, that I felt like we were posing in front of some fake backdrop. It was almost surreal.  And, again with this hike, the two hours we were exploring was just about the only time all day that the sun was out and the mountain not totally hidden behind clouds.  The poor people headed up while we were headed down missed this.  How blessed were we?  

So where to next year?  Back to Mt. Rainier and trails we haven't taken yet? Olympic National Park looks amazing as well, and we've never been there.  So much beauty, so little time to see it all!