Day 5

The road to Mount Rainier

We drove for about an hour on the highway, which gave us all some time to catch up on sleep!

Initially the road was a Native American trail used by the Nesqually tribe and they would use the lower wildflower meadows to trade items or arrange marriages.

Elk are often seen drinking water alongside the river.

Hot springs were discovered in the 1800s, and advertised to help heal illnesses.

We passed through Ashford, a small town that have a couple of businesses that offer hiking tours, but you have to be experienced and train for at least 4 months before they will take you. The Wittika mountaineer company offer this. The people that stay here during the winter love the quiet season and all the snow. In the sub alpine area there is still snow until June or July. The sub alpine flowers are why the area is known as paradise.

The hot springs are located in a small village called Longmire, although they are colder now because of the glacier. It now has a gift shop, bar and diner, restroom but not much else.

This year the permit system is going to start for people visiting in their own vehicle so that they can control the crowds.

The glaciers are melting 7 times higher than in the 1980s so it's a concern that the mountain roads may soon be unaccessible.

We started in the humid zone, around 2000 feet up, lots of fern trees, moss, vegetation etc. As you start to climb higher than 3000 feet you start to notice the temperature change and the trees become more sparse. Then as you get to 5000 feet there will be hardly any trees, more meadows, wildflowers and the glacier and glacial valley in between the mountain ridges. There are over 25 sub alpine parks and it's 95% wilderness here. Paradise where we visited is the busiest but it is very pretty with flowers and waterfalls so well worth the crowds.

As we reached close to 5000 feet up, we became surrounded by snow, the sun was out and it was a beautiful clear day underneath Mount Rainier. We grabbed some snow shoes and sticks and got on the snow to explore. Following that we made our way back down to the oldest part of the National Forest, where the eldest tree is 800 years old. It was lovely to be surrounded by nature for a few hours. We also stopped to have lunch by the ravine and Marty had made a homemade chicken salad with brown rice and soup.

We all made use of the 2 hour journey back to catch up on sleep and checked in to the Aloft in South Seattle for our final 2 nights. The hotel is modern and luxurious with a comfortable super king-size bed and amazing double shower.

Dinner was at Sharps Roasthouse which specialises in slow roasted meats, southern fried chicken, mac and cheese and bourbon cocktails. The whole menu looked delicious and the hotel ran a free shuttle for guests that would take you between the hotels and restaurants/bars.Baca lagi