Walking with Giants

Mount Rainier was the destination of our weekend so we could walk amongst some of the largest trees you can think of. Two 1,000 yr old Douglas Firs and one giant cedar were on this trail amongst so many other ancient beauties.

That's just the first half hour inside of the national park!

My. Rainier is the largest mountain in the cascade range and our dogs had to stay home because they protect all the wildlife within the park. I'm talking not just birds, but all white mountain goats, black bears, beavers all things galore!

We camped on the White River which has an epic view of the mountain:

There's a constant halo on top of it. Probably all the glacier's icy mist rising. Some believe it's UFO's though :)

The second day we were heading to the sunrise point when we stopped at a lookout and decided to do our hike right there, where less people were.

First we made it to Clover Lake and a layer of fog was still rising off her waters

Pictures don't do this place justice:

So continuing on our hike Alex sees a big ole porcini mushroom! This prompted me to search for more. So up a small trail I darted up where I start to see flowery meadows and I call to Alex to follow!

We travel up this magical meadow and find another lake

Pink alpine paintbrushes are everywhere!

And these guys!

 Called ole man of the mountain or Western Pasqueflower or Toe headed Baby! Needless to say they are pretty cool. And also potent medicine for anxiety!

We climbed straight up to the top of the highest meadow

And there was Rainier

Along with two Cooper Hawks chasing one another.

We looped around a different way so our descent down wouldn't be as steep as our climb up. We started walking towards a patch of snow.

Turns out it stays snowy here until July. Like you need snow chains for your tires or your not allowed on the roads around the park!

This whole time I've been looking for animals that I wouldn't see elsewhere when all of a sudden some rocks come falling down from a distant direction and an all white mountain goat peeks his head around right at us! Now I've never seen this allusive animal before so I wasn't 100% sure til it walked right into the clearing. It had a stride like a bear or a mountain lion. It walked slow and calculated and had a jump on its back while its head hung low. So cool! I was hoping others were behind him, but he was my only mountain goat today.

Proceeding back to the car, we quickly went through the visitor center to geek out on all the plants and stuff we just saw. Then we decided to spend the rest of our day driving around the rest of the park.

We went to a glacially carved canyon.

Saw these awesome succulents growing on the rocks.

Then we headed to the lake areas.

The one that we ended up stopping at was covered with blue mountain huckleberries. We followed the lake around collecting a bunch in a bag. At this point my feet are drenched from stepping in a big and we are following tight animal paths when Alex softly says, Jenna, Jenna, Jenna.

I see a bunch of birds fly off but to my left...

Just about 100 feet away this beauty of a black bear was scoping us out. I snapped one picture and walked away and my bear friend headed a different direction for his berry meal.

The sun started going down

So we made our final stop and left feeling rejuvenated from all out mountain goodness.