One word: SNOW! I was deciding whether or not to visit this park on our first Pacific Northwest Trip and I was able to fit it into our schedule. As you will see from our itinerary below we did not plan to spend too much time at this park due to the time of year. There is still too much snow in June to complete a lot of the trails and to see any of the wildflowers. By too much snow, I mean there is still 10 feet in areas on the mountain! I had a lot of hikes saved incase conditions got better as we got closer to our trip. We were prepared to hike in snow since we brought appropriate winter gear including our crampons for our hiking boots but it was cloudy with no views of the mountain. I think the weather was excellent 2 days later but oh well, that is how it goes sometimes! I also did not take a lot of pictures since my hands were either in gloves or it was raining!
We started our full day with some beermosas and a tex mex breakfast! I definitely recommend the White Pass Taqueria to anyone visiting the Packwood area!
Mt. Rainier is a mountain that is just over 14,000 ft in elevation... it is up there in
comparison to some of the 14'ers that we saw in Colorado years ago! Although she was hiding in the clouds, thanks to social media and google we can see what she should look like 🤣 On our flight home, it is possible I photographed her from the sky.
We did complete 2 decent hikes in this park. The first one was Silver Falls and it was completely snow free. The waterfalls were rushing due to all of the snowmelt and rainfall.
The second hike we did (in the snow) was up at Paradise and we were following others as they snowshoed up the mountain. I wasn't paying attention to my alltrails
app but later realized we weren't on the trail I had planned on being on at all lol. We ended up trudging our way to Myrtle Falls from the Golden Gate/Skyline Trail. The falls were
covered with snow but still visible:
Shane decided to do a jig in the snow lol.
Other waterfalls we stopped to see on our trek up and down the mountain included Christine Falls and Narada Falls. These were easily accessible except there was a snow patch that many were doing in tennis shoes.
The drive up to the mountain from Packwood is rather long but I am sure more scenic if the weather is clear. We got a few hints of the mountain peaks and the Nisqually River as we were driving but overall our trip to Mt. Rainier was cloudy and overcast. I got a little too excited when the clouds seemed to break a bit lol.
Our Air BNb had a very refreshing hot tub and a really neat Art Room. It was probably one of the best equipped stays we ever had. I highly recommend Rivers Cottage in Packwood!
Although a little early in the season to see the full potential of this park in the summer, it is still beautiful and worth the stop!
Here is our itinerary for this part of our trip:
June 17 Friday - Olympic to Mt. Rainier National Parks
Breakfast at lodge
Check out of Quinault Lodge
Travel to Mt. Rainier 3 hr 14 minutes
Lunch at blue spruce saloon in Packwood
Silver falls Hike
Narada falls - short hike
Got blackberry pie from copper creek inn
dinner was leftovers and pbj
Check in cabin packwood air bnb
June 18 Saturday - Mt. Rainier National Park
Breakfast - white pass taqueria (beermosas are great)
Hiked part of Golden gate from Skyline Trail to Myrtle falls (Paradise section of part)
Christine falls viewpoint
Late lunch/Dinner- copper creek inn
Return to Packwood air bnb
If you have not checked out my other posts on the other 2 parks we visited be sure to take a minute and do so 😊 If you didn't read about our North Cascades National Park visit click here ! Click here for our Olympic National Park post! Click here for our Columbia River Gorge/Mt. St Helen's post! Click here for the Deception Pass/Whale watch post!
Cheers!
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