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| Magenta Indian Paintbrush |
We did our last 'to do' for our visit to Mt. Rainier National Park before we left - went looking for wildflowers. We found many but were told by a volunteer ranger at Tipsoo Lake that August 1st is the best time to be here. What we did get to experience is snow, and lots of it, the changing of the weather by hour, the melt of the snow causing great waterfalls plus the glimpse of what would happen by the beginning of August - flowers every where! As you travel along the road there are splashes of color here and there. Flowers seem to be growing out of the rocks, along the edge of the road, in ditches, across meadows, every where. Our last photo op was seeing white and lilac and pink and magenta phlox just hanging on the sides of cliffs. How beautiful!
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| Tipsoo Lake and Mt. Rainier |
Drove back up the eastern side of the park to Chinook Pass where we saw two weeks ago rain, fog, heavy snow, and everything socked in. Could only imagine what we would find at the end of our stay. Tipsoo Lake had a bit of ice still on it but the snow is really melting fast. Little bits of color peeking up out of the ground that gave you a taste of how pretty this place will be in a couple of weeks. The ranger said that if we thought there were visitors now, just wait till then. I went nuts with the camera - the flowers we did get to see were beautiful. Lots of people trying to walk on what snow is left, it is very mushy and slippery. And in some places still quite deep.
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| Subalpine Glacier Lily |
As we think back to our two weeks here, our favorite place of all in the park was Grove of the Patriarchs. Lush greenery, the smell of the forest, heavy dew on the branches, moss as thick as your fist, trees growing out of dead trees, the birds chirping, fast flowing river, a free-standing bridge over the river, just magnificent. I really loved our time here. What little hiking we did was great, informative, but limited because of the snow pack. Mt. Rainier has certainly planned this park right with pull offs where there is a vista view or a waterfall. The one drawback if you want to do long term hiking, which we don't, parking is a premium at trailheads. Was a bit disappointed in the Longmire Lodge because we have been used to old, rustic Alpine style lodges in other parks and this particular one was fairly new. Didn't have the character that we have been used to.
On the other side, we lucked out with finding a camp ground not far from the entrance to the park - 7 miles away. Even though we put miles on the truck driving around in the park, we were not far from home. We also got to see the mountain 'out' and then not out, then out again. Yesterday the mountain was socked in - even snowed on top in the morning, today it is clear and bright. Today's drive up to the Pass allowed us to see the mountain one more time and you can certainly see the blue of the glaciers - very distinct.
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| Phlox |
Tomorrow morning we leave to go to Sequim which is on the Olympic peninsula, west of Seattle, near Olympic National Park. About a 185 miles from here. Will be there for a month and the great thing is that tomorrow by noon we will be back in cell service. Was weird not to have any service for two weeks, but was able to get on the internet to keep communication open. Sad to say goodbye to Packwood. Great place to come for a vacation. Will miss the kids (elk) who are in and around the campground every day, and night. Grace has loved keeping tabs on them. Everything you could want is here; and, if you have cell service, life would be terrific.
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