One of the biggest joys about living in Washington State are all the great mountains we have here. Real mountains, with snow and everything. Not dirt hills that are a little bit higher in elevation then the road.
My favorite mountain by far is Mount Rainier; this may be a biased opinion because I was born and raised in Puyallup, WA and this is the mountain I woke up to each and every morning.
Sunday morning-ish, Kevin and I decided to go hiking on this mountain. We checked the weather reports and the snow levels and found we could drive all the way up to Paradise which is at about 5400 feet of elevation, so not even halfway up the mountain. But it was covered in quite a few feet of snow though the roads were clear so the drive was easy and didn’t require chains.
We took Brian, Andrada, Trenton, and David with us. The wind was extremely chilly when we first go out of the car, but after bundling up it wasn’t so bad. Also, once we got on the trails the wind died down even more making it a bit warmer.
We walked around and played in the snow for bit, but none of us were really dressed for it. Trenton found a great hill to slid down. It was pretty fun for them for a few minutes, too bad we didn’t have any sleds or anything, but they seemed to do fine without them.
After hiking around for about an hour, we headed back down to the river where it was sunny. I packed everyone up some lunch, so we all ate our lunches by the river. It was quite a difference from Paradise. There was no snow and the sun was blinding.
We walked along the river. Trenton and Kevin made a bridge out of logs to forge the river and explore the other side. Kevin, my adventurous one, pole vaulted back across the river, but he wisely made Trenton and David cross back over the bridge.
All and all it was a fun day up at the mountain in gorgeous weather. In the next few weeks, we are hoping to go up there for a weekend and camp overnight. Of course that means buying new gear. I have no snow pants and no snow jacket, so I’ll have to get both of those things. Thankfully, we got a few gift certs. for Christmas that need to be used.
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