Paradise
It was a gorgeous, clear morning at Paradise today. We got an early start to ensure we would find a place to park, and were hiking up Mt. Rainier by 9:15. We took the less-traveled Dead Horse Trail up the mountain and were rewarded by seeing a family of ptarmigan, a chipmunk eating pine cone seeds in a white fir tree, and two hoary marmots "fighting" for territory. The marmots were both up on their hind legs and sparring with each other, but I'm not sure any serious blows were landed. It may have been more ritual than real fighting. Whatever it was, it was very entertaining and something neither of us had seen before.
The Dead Horse Trail climbs up the eastern side of Paradise, crosses a very small stream, and then continues climbing up through flower fields toward the junction with the more-popular (but much steeper) Skyline Trail. The flower fields were past prime for the first wave of wildflowers. The western anemones, avalanche lilies, mountain heathers, and other flowers of the first wave were scattered throughout the area, but most had already bloomed. A ranger told Carol we were about a week away from the second wave of blooms. As we climbed higher, we continued to look back for views of the Tatoosh Range and eventually Mt. Adams. But views of The Mountain were always drawing our attention back up the trail.
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When we reached the junction with the Skyline Trail, Carol stopped and I continued on to Glacier View. That was up another 1/4 mile and a couple hundred feet in elevation. After crossing a small snowfield to reach the viewpoint, I had an unobstructed view of the Nisqually Glacier and the top of Mt. Rainier. Mt. Rainier appeared relatively small when we started in the parking lot 800 feet below Glacier View, but now it seemed to fill the sky. A waterfall dropped over a cliff on the glacier, and the lateral moraine marked the outside edge of the glacier.
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When I returned to where Carol had stopped, she had made a new friend. A golden-mantled ground squirrel was trying his most persuasive begging moves to try to get Carol to share her sandwich with him. At one point, he had climbed on the rock beside her and looked like he was going to climb into her day pack. He was very cute, but we do not feed the wildlife.
After enjoying the sights and watching all the hikers go by, we switched over to the Skyline Trail and started down the mountain. It didn't take long for us to be very thankful we had climbed up the mountain on the Dead Horse Trail. The Skyline Trail was much steeper and far less scenic. It may have been more direct, but we decided we will NEVER hike the Skyline Trail to reach the upper reaches of Paradise. The only saving grace of the Skyline Trail was a patch of avalanche lilies on a hillside right next to the trail. They were backlit and relatively easy to photograph, which is important because you can't leave the trail anywhere in Paradise.
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By the time we reached the Visitor Center, we were pretty wiped out. We stopped briefly in the Visitor Center to check the Internet before driving back
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