Sweating on Snow Fields
Jun 12th, 2010 by Victoria Leigh
For all the times that Bryan has visited us in Seattle, he has never been to Mt. Rainier, the mountain that he wants to climb.
It was a gorgeous day for a drive so we headed south to Paradise passing loads of motorcycles and convertibles. After enjoying coffee and a snack in the new visitors center (which is really nice by the way, I highly recommend chilling out here) and walking around to the exhibits, we went up on the snow.
After spying hikers on the Muir snowfield from the binoculars inside, we hiked up to a ridge to get a better look. The show was deep and plentiful which had both of us huffing, puffing, and sweating our way up. Our wet socks and jeans were worth it though, once we got to ‘our summit’ we could see across a shallow valley to the Muir snowfield, up at a full unobstructed view of Rainier, and south to the rest of the mountains. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Others like us had hiked up further than most and had taken to creating snow slides on the side of the mountain for coming down. It was a bit like Chutes and Ladders, actually. There were also a lot of real hikers and climbers out today with some of them coming down the mountain on skis, in shorts. Got to love WA in June.
More photos here.
Also, I let my lips get sunburned.
I love Paradise. Haven’t been since March though.
What beautiful scenery. Tiff and I would love to join you and Alex sometime to see the beautiful Northwest!
Come on up! It’d be great to show you both around.
[...] day I was drenched in sweat from the knee up after the hike. (Victoria notes this as well in her post on Adventioneering.) It was a fantastic view, and revived my interest in climbing to the summit. It’s also [...]