Day 60, Sunday, August 14

I broke camp at 7am this morning (I realize it’s redundant to say it that way, but it’s standard practice, right?) and headed over to Cougar Rock Campsite at Rainier. After setting up camp and ditching the trailer again, I rode around through the park and over to the lodge at Paradise Valle for a shower. From Paradise Valley, you can see the Nisqually Glacier very clearly. Speaking of clear, my timing for seeing Mt. Rainier couldn’t have been any better. The weather is crystal clear today with only a slight bit of haze. I’ve been told that at other times of the year, you can’t even see half way up the mountain because it’s socked in by fog and clouds.
I’ve never actually seen glaciers up that close before and was I was fascinated by how shear the leading face of some of the glaciers is. Reading some of the literature at the Paradise Lodge visitor center, I found out that it’s not uncommon for huge chunks to fall off these faces and several times in the past these falling chunks of ice have wiped out parties trying to climb the mountain. That’d ruin your day, wouldn’t it?
This afternoon I rode up to Sunrise Visitor Center and went for a short 8 mile hike over Boroughs mountains to get a shot of Rainier from the North East. It really amazed me what a huge array of flowers are in bloom right now above the tree line. The signs on the trail indicated that the flora and ground on which it was growing was nearly identical to the Arctic Tundra. What else can I say but “cool!”