Day trip to Mount Rainier

August 31st this year fell on a Monday. Nothing special about August 31st other than Tim had the day off work and since I hadn't seen him much lately, August 31st became a Monday in which I decided to take off work to spend time with Tim (it helped also that the forecast was awesome for that day and I was pretty convinced that we did not have too many more nice days ahead). We got up fairly early that morning around 6am and at around 8, we were sipping tea and trying to plan our day. We talked about doing one of the hikes we love in the mountains right by us, or perhaps going to the beach. And then, out of the blue, it occurred to us that we should make the trip down to Rainier. I have never been to Rainier and Tim hasn't been since he was a kid. We tried to go last September, but some of the passes down there were already closed due to snow. A day that is supposed to be clear and warm and we are free? Let's go!

The west side of Mt. Rainier is about an hour drive south of us. However, we opted to go to the EAST side of Rainier on the day we went for a couple of reasons: a) Sunrise (a point where you go in the park) is the highest elevation you can get on the mountain at 6500 feet. This point is usually closed except for a couple months out of the year b) we wanted to hike and obviously can't hike to the 14,000 ft + summit of Rainier without extensive training and a myriad of passes to do it and we also wanting to take Bella hiking with us. The ONLY hike within Mt. Rainier national park that dogs can go on happens to be on the east side of the park. Of course, we could have done a hike in the national forests surrounding the park, but that wouldn't have been as fun.

So we started off our 2hour drive around 9am. It was rainy and foggy leaving Seattle so we were a bit worried that we were going to drive for two hours and not be able to see the mountain. After about an hour in, it began to burn off and a perfectly clear day opened up. Awesome.

Below are the pictures- we were a little bit camera happy which doesn't happen very often, so enjoy:

The GPS marking our trek up through the mountains. In the middle of nowhere. We went through several small towns before getting to this point. I could have sworn that someone transported me right back to Iowa when we were going through these towns. The similarities were uncanny.

Tim driving away (he drove the whole time!) We had made chocolate chip cookies over the weekend so we had those in the car with us...yum!

Bella enjoying the ride... she was transfixed by the rain outside at this point.

And finally- we see blue skies and the mountain range. Beautiful!

A view of how the roads looked for about the last hour of the drive. Dense forest- so pretty.

And we made it!

A view of the mountains shortly after getting into the park.

On our way up to Sunrise, our first view of Rainier down here was behind us. This is going to sound pretty stupid, but I was amazed by how much bigger it looked down here as compared to how it looks from Seattle (see pretty obvious statement, huh?) But seriously, that mountain/volcano is HUGE.

A view of a little alpine lake on top of Sunrise. We saw a lot of alpine lakes that day.

Gorgeous mountain. Our next feat: hike it! Why not?

Bella mesmerized by the mountain (ok, probably not- she probably just had to pee and was excited at all of the people around us). She was going nuts once we were up there.

My not so little puppy and I.

Bell Bells and I with a backdrop of Rainier.

Another shot of the gorgeous Rainier. We had the perfect day to be there.

Self portrait of Timmy and I.

Tim and Bella with a backdrop of Rainier at Sunrise.

Our attempt at a family photo. Bella did not love the idea.

Sexy husband sitting on a wall in front of the cascade range. Love it.

And more of the mountain range (and yet another alpine lake- in the left of the photo).

Shot that captures the meadows that surround Rainier. At this time of year there are tons of berries and wildflowers in these meadows. It's pretty awesome.

Pretty cool picture of the vast mountain range.

By this point, we had begun our hike (and the above is a picture from it). We did about 5-6 miles of the Pacific Rim trail which is the trail that goes all the way from Canada-California (yep, we'd like to hike that whole thing one of these days too). It intersects with Rainier national park and coincidentally is the only trail in the park that allows dogs so we hopped on it and went north for several miles. It was gorgeous (but wow, we were surprised by the altitude)! We found out after the fact that we were still hiking at about 5500 feet... and we were moving fast too. We couldn't figure out why we felt so tired afterwards when we usually hike much longer than that (and at greater inclines). The altitude would explain it- it's pretty significant for us Seattle-ites that live at sea level.

The halfway point in our hike- we came to yet another alpine lake. It was gorgeous! Bella LOVED jumping in. It was so clear and cool and there were lots of fish swimming around. There was also a great place to camp right by it... so you'd just hike in, camp, and have a lake right next to your campsite. We are seriously considering this spot for camping next summer once the snow melts from this spot. It's so peaceful and serene.

A shot of the lake with the mountains surrounding it.

The view of the road intersecting the mountains. To begin the hike, you basically hike along the road (but not right next to it- obviously, we are well above it). At this point we are about a mile in... the parking lot is in the very right hand corner of the picture (kind of down from the peak up there).

Looking down from the point where we were hiking.

Hugs for awesome dogs who hiked around in Rainier national park with us! She was a little trooper (and boy, was she tired afterwards....)

It was such a fabulous day! I love our little day trip adventures. We live in the most beautiful and diverse state and each time we do something like this and explore something new, I am even more in awe of the beauty in this state that we call home. It sounds sappy but it's so true.