Mount Rainier

We were expecting this stop to be akin to Crater Lake: Oh look, a nice thing to see. Pretty. Ok, done now.

We were so wrong.

We certainly were not expecting an old growth forest. We’d come back just for that. The babbling of the brooks, the cry of the ravens, the stately conifers reaching so incredibly high. We are fortunate to have probably the most isolated campsite in the grounds, which doubtless heightens the effect.

And then there’s the mountain. Maybe if we’d had the obstructed view that’s supposedly more the norm we wouldn’t have been so affected. But we didn’t and we were. The video we saw at Crater Lake showed re-enactments of people finding the Lake for the first time. One guy dropped to his knees. Mount Rainier had that sort of affect on us.

Everything here is very spiritual. We are in a somewhat constant state of awe. We haven’t even begun to explore the park, either, having only driven the 21 miles from Ohanapecosh to Paradise over and back a couple of times, and taken a couple of hikes. We could easily see ourselves returning.

The Tatoosh Mountain range is sadly overshadowed by its more famous cousin but it certainly has its own beauty and allure as well. Not all that different from the Sawtooths and the Tetons, more of a sharp, jagged, pointy look as opposed to the large rounded peaks of the Cascades, which were born out of volcanic activity rather than tectonic shifts.