Mt Rainier National Park from Sunrise Visitor's Center

Today we made breakfast at our campsite in Yakima, packed up and headed out for the national park. It took us a couple hours to get there and it was cloudy so wasn't the best for sight-seeing but we still had some good views. We decided to head to a part of the park called Sunrise to see if we could get above the clouds to see the mountain. When we got up there we saw a few peaks of the summit:


We went for a short hike on a trail near the visitor's center. There were tons of pretty mountain flowers blooming and we could see parts of the mountain but never the whole thing.

Grant starting out on the hike.


Emmons Glacier on Mt Rainier


At the top of the hike we did there was a little lookout area we stopped at for a snack and drink of water.


It was still a pretty view of the glaciers and base of the mountain even though we couldn't see the whole thing.


That's me - it was cold! About 40 degrees at the parking lot!


On the hike back up to the visitor's center we ran into a little fuzzy friend.
Black bear in Mt Rainier National Park (I guess the black bears here actually look more brown but they don't have any grizzlies in the park so it was for sure a black bear).


After scoping out that area of the park we drove back out towards Yakima over Chinook Pass into the national forest that borders it to find a spot to camp for the night.


Our little camping spot was right on a nice river so we took a little nap and played some cards before making supper.


After we were done eating and doing dishes we were thinking about heading to bed when a truck and horse trailer backed in to where we were camping. A guy and his dog got out and he yelled over to us 'water stop.' When they came back up from the river Grant asked him about his load of hay so he came over and visited for awhile. He was actually originally from Minnesota and now lives in Olympic, WA. We chatted for a bit and then he asked us if we wanted some cherries. He said he scored some from the place he just bought his truckload of hay from. We said sure and he came back with a 5 gallon bucket full ;) We filled up two little baggies and thanked him as he went on his way!

Grant enjoying his fresh Washington Yakima Valley cherries