Mount Rainier

After visiting Mount St. Helens we drove three hours to our reserved camp site in Mount Rainier National Park.  Mia still felt a little sick, but did well on the drive.  She took a long nap and had another little incident caught by a bucket.  She was feeling better once we arrived at the camp site.  We arrived at the Cougar Rock campground at Mount Rainier at 6:30pm -- just enough time to set up our tent and cook dinner.

Here is everyone enjoying our yummy taco salad.  Mia was able to have a little dinner. We got her a Gatorade at our last gas stop and the boys were jealous.  Patrick told them they could get one too if they threw up.  They gave it a good shot, but fortunately no one else has been sick.

Early morning in the tent.  Mia found her way into Emily's sleeping bag.  Mia slept a little longer than usual, which was helpful for her recovery.  It rained during the night, but fortunately we all stayed dry.  We did have to pack up a wet tent, though, which was not too fun.

Here are the boys helping carry water to clean the breakfast dishes.  After breakfast we broke camp and left for our day's activities.

Our view of Mount Rainier in the morning.  We were fortunate to have great weather.  It's not uncommon for clouds to impede views of Mount Rainier.  Some visitors never get to see it.  We luckily had a clear day.

There are a lot of waterfalls throughout the park.  Here is the Narada Falls.

If you look closely you can see a rainbow towards the bottom of the picture.  Andrew was excited to be the first one to see the rainbow in the waterfall.

The waterfall created a mist at this spot and the kids loved getting wet.  It was a short .2 mile hike to this view point.

At the Paradise Visitor Center we hiked part of the Skyline trail, which led to the Myrtle falls (.8 mile).  You can see Mount Rainier in the background.

After the short hike we drove around Mount Rainier to the Sunrise Visitor Center.  Here Brian, Andrew, and Mia were sworn in as Junior Rangers at Mount Rainier.  Most parks have a booklet the kids can complete to be worthy of the Junior Ranger name and badge.  All three completed their booklets and got their badge.

We then hiked the Sourdough Ridge Trail to the Frozen Lake (3 miles).  Here is Mia, with her Junior Ranger badge, on the trail.  It was a pretty rocky and steep trail.  It took us about an hour an a half, which is the average time.

Here is the frozen lake.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to touch it to see how cold it was.  We saw some marmots in the area, but didn't get a great picture of them.

On our way down we had to cross over some snow that covered the trail.  The kids thought this was awesome and a few snowballs were thrown.  Yes, we're wearing shorts when there is snow on the ground. It was probably 70 degrees outside and we weren't expecting snow.

Here is Mia and Emily coming down the second snow covered pass.

Here is the zoomed out version to show how big the area is.

There are a lot of hikes at Mount Rainier.  We're really pleased with the hikes we did while there.