Mt. Rainier National Park

The plan was to go to Mt. Rainier National Park with Lori, Jeanette and Merlyn and hike around and see the wild flowers. What was not planned for was late snow melt, record setting hot day and altitude. We ended up with a short hike at Paradise with still some flowers and lovely views but still much covered in snow. We did a short visit to Paradise Lodge and headed off for lunch. Our second hike was to be at Longmire but did some stops on the way. By the time we got to Longmire the temperature was in the 90’s so we did a visit to and lodge and headed on. Even on food stop at Papa Bears was hot and did not go a planned. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was just so darn beautiful there it would have been a bad trip but seeing the majestic beauty of Mt. Rainier and the Tatoosh Range with good friends for a while makes it all good.

Paradise Park Trail Hike

I had not hiked the Paradise Park Trail #778 in a number of years and was happy to hike it again and see what had changed. My first challenge was finding the new trailhead and finding very large pile of logs taking up most of the parking lot. Once maneuvering around couple of piles of logs I found where the new trail head began.

By the numbers 15.5 miles, 3000 ft. elevation gain and on the trail for about 8 hours.

Hardy Ridge Trail

A hike in Beacon Rock State Park up to Hardy Ridge. The ridge had great views of the Gorge and lots of wild flowers in full bloom. The hike was about 9 miles, 2300 elevation gain and on the trail for a little under 6 hours

A hike to Hardy Falls

This time out I was with Jeanette and Sylvia. We did a short hike (5 miles, 900 ft. gain) to Little Beacon Rock and Hardy Falls at Beacon Rock State Park. Afterward we went to Puffin Café, a place truly on the water.