Tuesday, September 17, 2019 - Mount Rainer, Washington

We rented a car and Dave drove us to Mount Rainer.  It took us about two hours to get to Longmire in the park.  We were early for lunch so had a very late breakfast.  The waitress was comical and very unique.  Among other quirks she had a little hop to her step!

This little roofed fire hydrant cracked me up.  I love the red foliage. 

This is a tree cookie from a 700 year old Douglas Fur.  They have placed tags at specific points in its growth that match historical events.  I guess I should have had someone stand next to it so that you could better realize the mammoth size of it.  I'm a wee bit taller than five feet and it is taller (in width) than I am.

It was a cool, cloudy, drizzly, and rainy day.  We weren’t sure that we would be able to see anything.  The vistas are muted but we were very glad that we traveled to the park anyway.

We entered the park from the southwest corner.  Initially, we were able to see some glaciers in the distance.

One fella we chatted with in Seattle said his neighbor had lived in town for six months before he saw Mount Rainer.  He didn't realize it was visible from town.  The 100 inches of rain annually hampers the view on more days than just the day we had to visit.

We progressed east and stopped at the visitor’s center in Paradise.  I was able to get Internet service for a second and posted the glacier picture to Facebook.  Shortly after leaving the Paradise Visitor’s Center a black bear lumbered across the road in front of us.  It was a very steep location and he was headed downhill.  Upon crossing the road he was camouflaged in the woods.  Sue had wanted to see a bear so now she can cross that off the list.

We got glimpses of many lengthy waterfalls but none were close enough for me to get a picture except this one right by the road.

This bridge is over box canyon and you can see the tunnel that we passed through on our way to this observation parking location.  As with many other National Parks, a lot of the roadwork in this park was done by the Civilian Conservation Corp.  

Here is a view down into the box canyon.

It's a long way down from the bridge to the canyon.

Many thanks to those who conceived of this park and those that did the hard labor to make it come to fruition.

 Here’s Allan my trip’s real photographer 

at work in Rainer drizzle.

Our next top was in the southeastern part of the park at the Grove of the Patriarchs.

These trees massive trees were Douglas Fir, Hemlocks and some  were Western Red Cedar.  Some of the trees old growth trees are reportedly nearly 40 feet in diameter and more than 300 feet tall.

These trees were not the biggest on the trail but they were huge.  

No big tree pictures with Dave and Sue.  They opted to stay dry in the car.

It’s not just the trees that are huge.  I don’t know what this is but the leaf is some big.  It looked like a one leaf plant!

     

Check out this leaf and the same leaf with my hand as a reference for size.  This is the same leaf!  Yup, HUGE.

We took a left turn and headed north out of the park.  We passed on the ride in to Sunrise because there were reports of snow up there and the day was getting late.

This was one of the adventures on this trip that I was most looking forward to and I was not disappointed.  Another great day for the Oboe adventurers.