Friday 9-8-23 Camping & Hiking at Sunrise

 

Mount Rainier

Due to no internet/cell service the blog is a bit behind, I am posting two blogs today, one from Thursday when we entered Mount Rainier and then this one. If you missed the first one go back a day.

Larry woke up at 6:30 and I crawled out of bed around 6:45. We got dressed and I made pancakes. While the skillet was cooling we got the Minnie ready to go.

Mount Rainier is a large park. We were headed to the Sunrise area which was 32 miles away. We were going to take the motorcycle but we decided to take the Minnie.

Once everything was securely in place, Larry set our chairs behind the Minnie to indicate the site was taken. He put them where he needed to put the Minnie when we got back. Then he started the Minnie and pulled it up to get off the blocks. We picked up the blocks and put them away. Now we were ready to go.

The drive was a gorgeous mountain road that went through the forest to get to the Sunrise hiking area. The road was very narrow and curvy. There were no guardrails. The road was very rough. The views of Mount Rainier and the mountain range were amazing. We drove through a tunnel. Traveling the 32 miles took about an hour.

Before getting to Sunrise there was a entrance gate Larry showed the ranger pass. He entered the number into the computer and let us go in. We were warned that Sunrise gets so busy that the parking lot fills up. They hold people back at the gate until people leave. When a car leaves then they let another car in. It can take fifteen minutes to an hour before you are allowed to proceed to Sunrise. We saw this when we were leaving.

Entrance to Sunrise Area

 

Tunnel

We were at Sunrise before 9:00 so we had no problem finding a parking place. We ended up parking in a gravel parking lot, we had the motorcycle carrier and Larry didn’t want to stick out in the road. There were a lot of people already at Sunrise hiking by the time we got there. There was a beautiful lodge with a snack bar and gorgeous visitor center. Once the Minnie was parked we got ready for a hike. 

We went on a short 2.5 mile hike but it was challenging even though it only went up 150‘ in elevation. We started in the parking lot and walked to the trailhead. As we were entering into the trailhead a couple of lady volunteers said good morning. They were going to their assigned trail to give hikers information about the trail and area. One asked which one we were hiking and Larry told her Silver Forest Trail. She asked the other lady if she minded if they stopped at Emmons Vista before hiking to their trail. She said no problem. They walked with us to Emmons Vista and the volunteer, who was here for ten years talked about the vista. She told us that Emmons is the biggest glacier and highest peak on Mount Rainier. Every year 10,000 people try to get to the summit but only half make it. The climbers do their climb at night because Mount Rainier starts to ice up. She explained that the snow is brown because the snow melts and causes rock slides, the dust from the rock slides and pollution from the air make the snow brown. She said in the afternoons you can see the slides and their amazing. She offered to take a picture of Larry and me. I gave her my camera and she was surprised it actually was a camera. She didn’t know how to use it so Larry gave her the cell phone. Isn’t it funny how you get used to using a certain electronic device and forget how to use another one that does the same function.

After the lady took the picture they continued their hike and we went to Silver Forest Trail. We learned a lot from the volunteer and it was very nice she decided to walk with us a bit. Both of the volunteers were very nice and helpful. The Silver Forest Trail was 1.8 miles round trip. We hiked in .9 miles when there was a sign, that said the trail maintenance ends here. We turned around and went back. We stopped a few times to rest and look at the gorgeous view of Mount Rainier and the rest of the mountain. We saw the White River, that flows through the valley and a mountain lake. We saw wildflowers. We had a beautiful hike.

Lake at Sunrise area

Mount Rainier from the Silver Forest Trail

When we were finishing up our hike a lot of people were just beginning. We said hi to a lot of people. By the time we got back to the parking lot it was full. We walked around and I took pictures. We walked through the visitor center. We were surprised to find out that the visitor center had WIFI. Larry checked his e-mail. It was a very small visitor center but the building was gorgeous. We walked back to the Minnie.

Sunrise Visitor Center

Once there we rested a bit. Larry had internet on Mobley and he didn’t have any hiking maps for Washington so he decided to download the maps. It was slow and was going to take about a half hour so we had lunch. After lunch we started our adventure back to the campground. When we got to the gate, there was a long line of people waiting to get in. We figured the parking lot was full and they were waiting for people to leave.

We got back to the campground about 12:30. We setup the Minnie once again. Tomorrow we’re going to hike around the campground so the Minnie will rest a bit. I took a nap for two hours and Larry read outside.

When I woke up we went for a half hour walk around the campground. Larry barbecued hatch burgers for dinner.

After dinner I walked around for a half hour to finish my steps. I ended up doing 15,000 steps. We had a wonderful day.