Early in March we visited Washington state for the first time! Greg had to go there for work and I was lucky to be able to come along. We were there Thursday to Sunday, and we had a free day on Saturday that we used to visit Mount Rainier National Park!
We stayed in Enumclaw in a restored church that was built back in the 1800s! It was a charming and unique place to stay for a few days.
During our time there, I often looked out the window in the direction of where I knew Mount Rainier was, but it was grey and cloudy up there so I couldn’t see it at all. On the day of our visit to the national park, however, the skies were slightly clearer. Not clear enough to see the peak from Enumclaw, but a hopeful sign that there might be a break in the clouds and we could get a glimpse at some point.
We left Enumclaw around 10am and drove to the Nisqually entrance. During the winter months, the only visitor centers that are open are Longmire Museum and the Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor center at Paradise. There is only one road and it takes you past Longmire to Paradise, but sometimes it is too snowy so they close the road beyond Longmire and you can’t visit Paradise. On this day, the ranger at the park entrance said that the gate to Paradise was open, but it closes at 4pm each day. You need to be back outside the gate by 4pm or you will be stuck in the park overnight, I guess! We wanted to visit both areas, so we decided to visit Paradise first so we didn’t risk cutting it close to the gate closure time.
After passing Longmire museum and the National Park Inn, we continued through the gate and followed the snow-walled road to Paradise. When we rented our car in Seattle, they upgraded us from a Camry to a huge Dodge Ram 1500 because they didn’t have any smaller cars left. This was actually perfect for us because the snowbanks on either side of the road were so high, they were taller than the truck! Because the park gets so much snow, in the winter months they require snow chains on your tires to provide better traction. We borrowed some from Greg’s coworker and the park ranger asked if we had them when we entered the park. On the day we visited, the signage said chains were only required on 2-wheel drive vehicles, and there was a pull off area for people to apply them. We were glad to have the big truck to give us confidence we could make it out if a big snowstorm came through. The roads were all plowed though, so the driving wasn’t bad. We were in awe of the surrounding mountains and the huge amount of snow!
We were surprised how many cars were parked at Paradise! It was quite a drive from the entrance to this spot, so you feel remote, but there were many people there with snowshoes and skis. Our first stop is always to the visitor center to stamp our National Park passports and get information from the rangers. Greg’s parents gave us snowshoes for Christmas a few years ago and we hadn’t had the chance to use them yet, so in anticipation of visiting the snowy park, we packed a check bag with all of our gear. Snowshoeing is fairly straightforward, but since we aren’t experienced, we let the ranger know we were new to the park and new to snowshoeing. That helped her better recommend which trails we could choose from. There were swirly symbols on the map indicating avalanche zones, something we haven’t seen on a map before!
Since we had to make sure to make it back beyond the gate at Longmire by 4pm, we had to keep in mind how long the hikes would take before making our decision. We chose a short 1-hour hike near the overnight parking lot that was an out and back to a vista of Nisqually Glacier.
We fueled up in the car with some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we packed and then bundled up before walking over to the trailhead carrying our snowshoes and poles. It was our first time putting on our snowshoes and they worked really well! They were easy to adjust which is helpful when your hands are so cold! It was around 30 degrees and not windy, so the conditions were very nice. The trail was very defined and was easy to follow.
We saw a few people coming the opposite way right as we started, but eventually we were the only ones for a while and it was very quiet. The sun came out and we had blue skies. The trees were towering around us and laden with snow.
At one point we caught a break in the clouds and we could see the whole peak! According to the National Park map, Mount Rainier stands at 14,410 feet, making it the tallest volcano in the Cascade Mountain Range. The peak actually consists of two large craters which give it a slightly rounded shape when you look at it rather than a sharp point. It was a beautiful and lucky sight and such a special moment we shared together with no one else around.
Feeling decently warm because of the snowshoeing movement and the sunlight, we continued along the trail to the turnaround point: an overlook of Nisqually Glacier. Mount Rainier is the most glaciated peak in the continental US, with 25 named glaciers. We were so thankful for a clear moment in the day because it could have been cloudy and we would have no idea what the peak and glacier looked like even though we were so close.
We took our time and made our way back to our car and drove a bit back towards the gate to stop at Narada Falls for some more snowshoeing. It was a short trail down to the waterfall, which was still rushing behind a frozen outer shell.
From there, we drove 8 more miles back through the gate and stopped at the Longmire Museum area. We visited the museum exhibits and learned about the history of the local native people, expeditions to the summit, different animals found in the park at various altitudes, and the unique geological features of the area. We looked around the general store and the National Park Inn and decided to put in a reservation for the first time slot for dinner at 4:30pm.
We had an hour, so we walked the Trail of Shadows right across the road from the inn. It’s a less than a mile loop around a marsh that takes you through a bit of history. There are several mineral springs in the area that were discovered by James Longmire who made the area a destination for people who sought healing properties from the springs. As you walk through the towering trees you pass a few of the springs and an old cabin, along with several informational signs.
One of my favorite features of this hike was learning that the Rampart Ridge (seen in the photo below) was the result of lava flow pooled between two glaciers. It is wild to think that what today looks like a nondescript mountain ridge was once flowing lava that hardened into that shape because it was between two glaciers like a mold.
At 4:30pm it was time for our dinner reservation! Normally we eat dinner around 8 or 9, so 4:30 was early for us. The whole time we were in Washington we were thrown off by the time zone change so we were hungry earlier and tired earlier. Plus, we had completed all of the activities we had set out to do and it was getting dark, so it was best to have dinner now so we could begin the two-hour drive back to Enumclaw.
We thought perhaps there would be lots of people there along with us because of the gate closure at 4pm, causing a rush of people out of Paradise and into Longmire. But that wasn’t the case. We ate all alone! I had looked at the menu ahead of time and they had some options that looked good! Greg had the meatloaf and I had the salmon with gnocchi. We also had a little plate of roasted sweet potato slices topped with goat cheese, apples, dried cranberries, and pecans. Yum!
I’m glad we had the opportunity to eat there because the food was delicious and it was fun to eat in the park, but it was also convenient because it takes a while to get out of the park and back to a place with restaurants.
As we drove back to Encumclaw and admired the sunset, we suddenly noticed that we could see the peak of Mt. Rainier glowing bright pink! It’s a phenomenon called alpenglow, when a mountain peak appears red as the sun sets opposite. It was so beautiful! We had to turn around and drive past the view again so we could both get a good look at it.
Just 10 minutes later, we were driving through the town of Eatonville and we could see the peak again, but now the sun had set further and the peak was white with a glowing purple sky. We pulled over into a school parking lot to admire the view. It’s neat to think about going to school there and having this mountain as your backdrop.
For the past few years, I’ve set a goal to visit a new national park each year. Usually we achieve this by taking a short trip for our anniversary in September. This year we achieved it much earlier in the year because of the opportunity to travel together for Greg’s work. There are two more national parks in Washington and lots more area to explore (also in different seasons) in Mount Rainier National Park, so if/when we can travel there again, we look forward to seeing more!
Thanks for reading!
-Rebecca
Flourish & Blogs 