PARADISE...

Fog greeted us in the a.m. and hung around all day so we didn’t see mountains, but enjoyed a beautiful 81 mile “ride” around the “Paradise Loop” in Mt Rainier NP. It only took us 7 hours to enjoy the myriad of sights. Great “Bear Grass” captured my eye, along with the beautiful flowers at Box Canyon, where tons of water rushed thru gorge that was 131’ deep and 13’ wide at its narrowest. The granite in this area was brushed by glaciers and you could see the grinding marks along the path. Many massive waterfalls provided thunderous noise and a cold spray now and again on an already cool 45 degree day in the high country.

The roads in Mt Rainier NP were designed to give the visitor spectacular views at every bend, and often did not follow the most logical route for road construction. As the 5th NP (created in 1899) the park is fabulous. Many of the Paradise buildings were constructed in the early 1920‘s, except for the new (2008) Paradise Henry M. Jackson Memorial Visitor Center were we enjoyed a 30 minute film about the park. We wished we’d visited earlier in our life so we could have enjoyed some of the longer hikes and gotten closer to the glaciers. This NP has more large glaciers then any other NP in the contiguous US. Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!!!

After I posted last night, a neighbor told us where to find the Elk so we headed out about 8 p.m. There were a few in a field close to the “Hotel” and a herd of 30 down the road about 5 miles... and Don couldn’t resist trying out an old bicycle on display across from the Hotel.