Looking up towards Sourdough Ridge, at Sunrise, Mt. Rainier National Park.
So. A week and a half ago, we were having temperatures in the 80s here in the Puget Sound lowlands. We’ve had a summer for the record books — the most 90 degree days in one year, the most 80 degree days in one year, the hottest June, July, and August on record… The weather forecasters were beginning to sound like a broken record (and far too chipper for their own good, given the circumstances).
Then, a week ago today, the switch flipped. The temperatures dropped to the 60s, the wind picked up, and — you guessed it — we had the biggest August windstorm on record. All of a sudden it was October (the main harbinger of autumn here is wind — google Inauguration Day storm, Columbus Day storm, and Hanukkah Eve storm if you don’t believe me).
I’ve already got a second quilt on the bed, too, because the nighttime temps have started dropping to the 40s.
And then, to celebrate completing my new novel Reunion (the second Tale of the Unearthly Northwest), my friend L and I drove up to Sunrise today, on the eastern side of Mt. Rainier, and were greeted with this beautiful sight:
Low 40s, with snow-covered picnic tables. Suffice to say, we ate our lunch in the car.The trail was a bit icy and slushy, but the walk was wonderful. The air smells absolutely amazing up there.Not all was black and white and gray. Mountain ash foliage in full autumn color.Looks like some kids were having a good time!There really is a mountain up there. Looks like the bottom of the cloud deck was at about 12000 feet.
Oh, and the 6000 steps? Sunrise is at 6300 feet. We hit snow at about 6200 feet (Sunrise Point, about a mile from Sunrise proper, is at 6100 feet, and there was no snow there).
A view of the Mountain from the Shadow Lake trail.
Late summer in early July
My friend Loralee and I went to Mt. Rainier for a wildflower jaunt on Wednesday. This just goes to prove that I have an unending jones for wildflowers, because I’d just seen tons of them on my trip to the Canadian Rockies.
It was hot in the lowlands, our 14th consecutive day above 80 — we tied a record yesterday with another one — so the 70s predicted for Sunrise at 6300 feet (about 1920 meters) on the east side of the Mountain sounded wonderful. (it’s been remedied by the long overdue return of our onshore flow, the wind off the ocean that we often refer to here as our natural air conditioning — so far, today’s high’s been about 70F (about 21C)).
We stopped to pick up what I always think of as an insta-picnic at Subway on our way up, and got to Sunrise around noon. We had a lovely picnic, then I went for my usual jaunt around back behind Sunrise to Shadow Lake while Loralee strolled closer by.
If I hadn’t known for a fact that it was July 8th, I’d have sworn it was the middle of August. There’s usually at least some snow on the ground near or on the trail this early in the season, the pasqueflowers aren’t quite over, and there’s glacier lilies everywhere.
On this July 8th, there was no snow whatsoever except way up on the Mountain, the phlox that normally blooms in late July was all but finished (I found maybe two clumps that hadn’t gone to seed), the lupines were past their prime, and there were August asters everywhere.
It was still gorgeous, as usual, but still.
Here’s some of what I saw today:
Pasqueflower seed mopheads.Davidson’s penstemon.One of about two patches of alpine phlox that weren’t finished blooming for the season.I don’t know what kind of butterfly/moth this is, but they were all over the place.The only four-legged critter I saw on my walk (he’s a least chipmunk). There were rumors of bears, but I was just as glad not to see them. I prefer bear-watching from my car, thanks.A rather low and murky Shadow Lake.Harebells! In early July! As Ivan Vorpatril would say, that’s just Wrong.Lupine pooling in the meadow.A not-normally-this low creekbed, with lousewort (what an awful name) and bistort.Mostly lupine, with about half a dozen neighbors including white lovage.Broadleaved arnica.Scarlet paintbrush and asters..False hellebore, which always looks like mutant cornstalks to me, with asters in the background.A single alpine aster flower.
All in all, given the lack of winter and a so-far unreasonably hot spring and summer, not bad.
But, as I said to Loralee on our way down the mountain, “Harebells! In early July!”
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make my annual wildflower reconnaissance up to Sunrise on Mt. Rainier. It was a beautiful day, if a bit too hot in the lowlands, the best kind of weather for escaping to the Mountain.
So I got up early, and packed a lunch, and made the two-hour drive — only to discover that the story we’d been seeing on the news about a 64-year-old man who’d gotten lost on the Wonderland Trail would have a direct effect on my day, as well as the day of a lot of other people hoping to visit the park. Not nearly the effect it was having on that poor hiker’s day, thank goodness, but the search and rescue effort had closed the parking lot at Sunrise so that the helicopters from Joint Base Lewis-McChord could use it as a landing pad.
So, now what to do?
I hadn’t driven all the way around Mt. Rainier in at least a dozen years, and to the best of my knowledge I’d never done it in a clockwise direction. I’d also been intending to go to Tipsoo Lake, just inside the eastern border of the park almost to Chinook Pass, for a long, long time. I was already headed in that direction, and had a good jump start, so, I thought, looking at my full gas gauge, why not?
Tipsoo Lake isn’t more than about ten miles to the southeast of the turnoff for Sunrise, on the road that leads to Yakima. It’s a beautiful alpine lake which, in still and sunny weather, reflects the Mountain in its water. Today wasn’t still, but the view was still pretty spectacular, as were the early wildflowers. I was surprised to still see snow on the ground, too, which made me wonder if I was really missing anything by not going to Sunrise — I’m not all that fond of hiking in the snow.
Mt. Rainier from Tipsoo Lake.Snow on the shores of Tipsoo Lake.A pasqueflower at Tipsoo Lake.A whole field of avalanche lilies and false hellebore at Tipsoo Lake.And a close-up of an avalanche lily or two.
After an enjoyable hour on the footpath encircling the lake, I headed south — and downhill a few thousand feet — to Ohanapecosh, at the southeast corner of the park. Ohanapecosh is back down in the deep, lush forests that surround Mt. Rainier, and a trail winding through them is appropriately named the Grove of the Patriarchs. The grove itself is on an island in the middle of the river, reached by crossing a sturdy but fragile-feeling suspension bridge, which gave me the weird sensation of still feeling like I was on it even after I was back on dry land.
The Grove of the Patriarchs trail.Across the Ohanapecosh River suspension bridge on the Grove of the Patriarchs trail.Sun glowing through vine maple leaves.This gentleman was posing for his companion, but I thought he made a good marker for the scale of these trees.A gorgeous old stump.
From Ohanapecosh I drove up Stevens Canyon, which is a spectacular drive clinging to the sides of cliffs and passing through avalanche chutes.
Mt. Rainier from the lower end of Stevens Canyon.Looking back east down Stevens Canyon.
The Stevens Canyon road leads up to Paradise where I had planned to walk the Nisqually Vista Trail before heading home. However, when I got there, I discovered that Paradise was still snow-covered, in the middle of July! Normally the snow is almost gone by then, but we had a very late winter this past year, and a very heavy snowpack, and it was still snowing up there in May.
So, as I said, not being a fan of hiking in the snow (and the main reason I’d wanted to hike the trail being wildflowers), I decided to head on home.
Not exactly the day I’d planned, but I’m still glad I did it. It’s fun to explore different parts of familiar places, and Mt. Rainier is just about as familiar to me as my own back yard.
I’m just really sorry they never found that poor hiker.
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