Mount Rainier National Park

Today we headed south from Seattle to Mount Rainier National Park. There are 12 of us in the group, and our guide, Ryan. The bus is good, and even has wifi in it!  Happy me!

Mount Rainier itself is still volcanically active (some hot springs and things), though we didn't see any signs of it. It's in the region of 16000 feet high. It was overcast with heavy showers for the drive, and was still pretty grim when we got there. After a quick lunch, a chat with a helpful ranger pointed us at a 3 hour loop walk past 2 waterfalls with the possibility of Marmots! 

Fairly tipping it down still, but a number of us decided to brave it at least to the first waterfall and see how we went. Luck was with us and the weather slowly cleared. 

We encountered marmots exactly where the ranger suggested we would, and they were fairly unafraid of people, so some really good pics of them whistling to each other and looking cute.

Further on and one of the group spotted that the clouds had cleared enough to actually see the peak.  It was a bit mind boggling to me to see something so darn high! The snowcovered peak, peeking through the clouds, looked like just another cloud!

The weather continued to get better as we climbed, and further up the mountain someone spotted a black bear! A fair distance away (the ranger says probbly grazing on berries), but still very definitely a bear.  We had been told it was highly unlikely we'd see one, so we were all very pleased.

The weather turned a bit greyer and the mountain disappeared back into the clouds.  We got a short snow flurry, which was fun, and got high enough for there still to be slow on the ground in places. The highest we went was 6400 feet and a few of us were a little breathless. Either we were unfit or more likely (don't ruin my self delusion) feeling a bit of altitude.

On the way back down we saw a mountain goat, which we were also told is fairly rare for this area, and then about 10 minutes from the lodge it started raining fairly heavily again, so a bit of a damp end but all in all a fantastic day.  We were all so pleased we braved the weather and went when we did. It was a little touch and go as to whether we would actually brave the weather.

Things seen:

Marmots
Black Bear
Chipmunk
Raven

Huckleberries
Mountain Bog Gentian (the purple ones)
Pasqueflower Seedheads (the fluffy pom-poms)
Scarlet or Magenta Paintbrush (the red ones)
Lewis Monkeyflower (the ones in the pond)
Pearly Everlasting (the white ball ones)