Back to Mount Rainier

For our route back to the Portland airport, we decided to spend the day at Mt. St. Helens and Columbia River Gorge. In order to have enough time for them both in one day, we would need to spend the night in the area. Thus, we rationalized going back to Mt. Rainier. We spent the last camping night of our trip back at our favorite place, but we did try a different campground (Cougar Rock, nice, but not nearly as nice as Ohanapecosh).

We were set up around 5, perfect length of time to take a hike. A glance at the map on the board in front of the ranger station led us to Carter Falls, a 2.2 mile round trip trail with a 500’ elevation gain on the way up. Sounded perfect. We took it nice and easy on the way up, stopping every so often to look at plants, trees, etc. There were actually two waterfalls at the top, well worth the effort. Plus, going down was fun. At the base of the hike is the Nisqually River, which comes from glacial melt, as opposed to melting snow. It really does look very different – very milky, churned. The other is exceedingly clear.

Our last ranger program of the trip was the right note to go out on. Ranger Jim’s presentation was a tour de force. It began with a primer on plate tectonics and how they cause various geological features (like mountains and volcanoes), and segued seamlessly (how, we’re still not sure) into plant and animal adaptations. It basically covered pretty much an entire high school earth science class with a liberal helping of biology as well. He was only momentarily thrown when his laptop went into ‘hibernate’ mode (‘gone the way of the marmot,’ he quipped as he went to check on it) forcing him to finish without the aid of slides. As most of the evening talks we’d been to this trip had lasted on the order of 20 minutes, we were surprised to be there well past dark (and after 10). But it was worth it.