Hike in Mount Rainier

Ok, so I was going to try to give this great daily log of the move and our subsequent adventures, but as it often does, life got in the way. So, I've decided that I'm just going to give some highlights of things that we've done recently, hope that Pamela can fill in some of the gaps on her blog and keep going forward. Someday the past will all get wrote down! I know, great English.







Moving on. One of the things we wanted to since before we even got here was to hike in Mt. Rainier. You can see some beautiful pictures of the park and learn all about it at the National Park Service's Mount Rainier website. Obviously, that wasn't enough for us, and I highly recommend you not be satisfied with a silly website either.

We ended up going with Pamela's parents while they were visiting over the 4th of July week. We drove up the Monday morning after the 4th weekend. We didn't go very far into the park but what we did see was breathtakingly beautiful. One cool feature of the park is that a seasonal pass for the whole family (one vehicle) was only twice as much as one trip in. It's already paid for itself and will again several times over just this summer. We started up the mountain and stopped first at Cougar Rock for a lunch picnic. From our spot at the picnic table we could see Eagle Peak in front of us and one of the mountain's seven glaciers behind us. Did I mention Mt. Rainier has glaciers? It is actually an inactive (not dormant) volcano that last erupted about 5000 years ago. When I mentioned this to my father, who was commenting on how beautiful the Wasatch Front was, he said, "yeah, but my mountains are true." I can't believe my own father has become one of "those" Utah folks. Anyway, I digress. From our picnic spot we were able to get great views. We had some friendly birds join us for lunch (no idea what kind, anybody know?) and we did our best to keep the kids (and the grandparents) from feeding them...







After lunch we drove up to the start of the Christina Falls trail. From there it is .8 miles to the first falls bridge. It was a great hike and not strenuous at all. The falls were beautiful and just a bit frightening as Bekah and Brenton ran around the bridge and the edge of the rocks and such. How odd that doing that never bothered me as a kid, but terrifies me as a parent; sorry Mom and Dad, I didn't know! We all survived though, and Pamela's parents made the trip to the bridge and back with aplomb. I was glad they went and the kids got to spend that kind of time with them. On the way back out of the park we stopped at a bridge and looked the rocks underneath. The water had turned them this weird orangish color. We played around there for a little while and then headed home. It was great trip altogether. Can't wait to go back!