It worked out that Wednesday was our day to do it. Daniel and I went to the Airforce base in the morning to rent the snowshoes. The base has an adventure store where you can rent almost anything outdoor related, from skis and snowshoes to tents, campers, and kayaks. After I had my gear, we headed down the road towards the mountain.
As we arrived at the National Park, I was amazed at how green everything still was. I thought that since we were this close to the mountain, there would at least be some snow on the ground. In fact, it was actually drizzling as we entered the park.
As we wound our way up the mountain, the temperature slowly began to drop. The rain turned to slush and finally to snow. By the time we got to Paradise, which is at 5400 feet, there was tons of snow. And I mean tons. Feet and feet of it. During the winter, the road into the park is only open up to Paradise, and it sounds like the road is closed frequently due to snow. I read somewhere the Mount Rainier is one of the snowiest places on earth. After visiting it in the winter, I believe it.
Once we got to the parking lot at Paradise, we strapped on our snowshoes and prepared ourselves to go. Our first obstacle was to actually get out of the parking lot. Due to the abundance of snow, the parking lot was surrounded by 5 foot snowbanks with sides that were cut straight up and down. It took a little bit of scrambling to get up, but eventually we escaped the parking lot.
We started side hilling our way up the mountain and quickly came into a huge bowl. From someone who lives his life surrounded by flat corn fields, I was in awe. Even though visibility was low, what I could see was absolutely amazing.
From the bowl, we worked our way up to the top of a ridge. I bet on a clear day the view would have been spectacular.
Walking with snowshoes is somewhat awkward. I had only tried snowshoeing once before, so it took a little bit to get used to walking with these huge things strapped to your feet.
As we were climbing up the ridge, the wind started to pick up. And visibility began to drop. But that didn't stop us from having a great time.
When we made it to the top of the ridge, or at least the top of what we could see, visibility was bad enough that we decided that we should turn around. Although I wanted to keep going and see how high we could get, it was definitely the smart move. With the clouds moving in, it was difficult to tell where we were in relation to where we started. To be safe, we decided to follow our tracks back down to the parking lot. Though with the wind, our tracks were already beginning to get swept over.
But no worries, we made our way back to the parking lot with no problem.
At Paradise, there is a lodge where you can stay. But it isn't open during the winter. For the life of me I can't figure out why?
In case you can't tell, what you can see is the second story of the lodge. The entire first floor is buried. No wonder it closes down.
We took a break and ate lunch. With more fuel in the tank, we had enough energy to go out again for a little while. This time, we explored a different area. We made another climb, but not near as high as on our first excursion. I was definitely feeling it by this point, so we didn't go for too long on that second spurt.
The wind was starting to die down a little, and by the time we made it back to the parking lot, you could tell that the clouds were starting to thin out. We unstrapped our snow shoes loaded up the car and headed down the mountain. As we made the drive down, the clouds continued to lift, slowly revealing the majestic landscape all around us.
Eventually, there were blue skies.
With how cloudy and overcast it was for most of the week, we didn't get too many unobstructed views of Mount Rainier. But thankfully, we did get a few.
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