Jul 19, 2013

After consulting with the rangers at the visitor center, we decided on the Glacier Vista trail because of its supposed lack of bad snow/ice conditions. We hiked up the paved trail from the visitor center, stopping at a waterfall view for some photos. We crossed a couple of bridges and continued up the steeper slope until we saw snow.

I guess the "less snowy" trail doesn't mean no snow. It was surprising to see so much snow cover, but we got right into it and learned the best way to walk through it was to dig our heels in for each step. It became easy once we got the hang of that. The snow was really nice and we were still in t-shirts, Joanna in shorts. The weather was great.

We stopped for photos in several places. I did some feet shots and tried to get a good angle on the huge mountain in front of us. We kept climbing up to a point where we could see the blue of several of the glaciers on the mountain. There was something about staring at the face of Mount Rainier that transfixed me and filled me with such a good feeling. Being in the presence of natural wonders will do that I suppose. It is awesome.

On our way down we decided to take the less-traveled route through the snow and down the slopes. We had no skis, but we did have heels and our backsides so we found a way to use them. It was a little cold, but it was a ton of fun.

You get the idea. We went up and down the slope a few times, sliding down and wanting to do more. The rest of the way down we did some sliding, but mostly on our heels. This was definitely one of my favorite experiences hiking for several reasons.

All of the campgrounds in the park were full, but we found one not far outside one of the entrances called La Wis Wis that ended up having a few spots. We found our spot, then we found a better spot, so we set up our tent there and smiled at it. We noticed a trail near our site so we took to it to find out where it led. It was a slightly steep walk that took us along a cascading stream with several small waterfalls and pools of water. They were really nice to look at and, it turns out, refreshing to dunk your head in.

After we played by the water for a while, we hiked back to our camp as the sun filtered through the hanging mossy branches. We wanted to do some more exploring of the area so we biked out of the campground up the main road. This is not as easy as it sounds since the entrance to the campground is a supremely steep winding road. I thought we were going for a nice bike ride! We got out to the road and decided to turn around before a steep decline that we would clearly have to come back up to get back to our site.

With the bike idea aborted we went for a walk along the river and around the campground and then came back to chill at our site and watch Breaking Bad for a couple of hours before bed.