We’ve been in Seattle just over a week, long enough to reset our body clocks to the Northern Hemisphere and noticing that it takes a bit longer these days 😉
After attending Johnny’s wedding down in Oregon last weekend, (38C but fabulous) Sam suggested a short break to show us ‘his’ mountains and specifically Mt Rainier.
We had booked an Air BnB near Greenwater, just outside of the Mt Rainier National Park but broke the journey at Enumclaw to stretch our legs and sample the bakery.
Sam had thoughtfully devised a baby (and seniors) friendly itinerary and his plan was to overshoot the BnB initially and maximise our sight seeing time by visiting Sunrise in the park prior to our 4pm check in.
The drive up on the north eastern side of Rainier was spectacular – firstly accompanying the White River rushing along beside us and then climbing through towering evergreen conifers affording brief glimpses of the mountains in between.
At 4,392m Mt Rainier is the tallest mountain in Washington state and the Cascade Range. We’ve seen it several times before from the air as it stands out prominently from the surrounding topography and is visible from Seattle and on a clear day even from Vancouver, Canada. It is an active volcano and considered to have a high chance of eruption in the ‘near’ future. We had a quick stop for lunch beside the river which Bodhi was a little too intent on exploring so were soon on our way again.
The temperature had dropped back to the high twenties and an azure sky created a beautiful contrast to the verdant meadows dotted with wildflowers.
We decided on the ‘moderate’ hike up to Sourdough Ridge, a trail which eventually continues on to Frozen Lake. The views at the ridge of Rainier in one direction and Mt Baker in the other were spectacular and we could see the lake in the distance as well as a kaleidoscope of colourful wildflowers in the foreground.
At around about this point the youngest member of the family was starting to let us know we’d probably done enough for today and coupled with some ferocious mountain mosquito action we decided to call it a day and headed down the mountain to find our air BnB, crank up the hot tub and fire up the barbie 😍
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