Cloudy Rainier

2023-07-13
Mt Rainier National Park, WA

Today my cold got worse and I didn't get much sleep overnight. It's only 3 hours or so over to drive to Mt. Rainier, but we decided it would be safest if Val drove. The careful reader knows that I do almost all the driving. This is not because of any great skill on my part or any deficiency of Val's; rather it simply comes down to the fact that she can read in the car while I get carsick. It's amazing how much needs to be read; in addition to all the maps and itineraries, there is also reading fun facts about the parks we are visiting. For instance, in the winter of 1971-1972 Mt Rainier received over 1,000 inches of snow. She also keeps food and water flowing. In fact, on these trips, GF stands for General Factotum.

We drove to the Grove of the Patriarchs parking lot. We knew that the bridge to the Grove was out, but we chose to park in the lot and do the Silver Falls trail. It is a 1.5 mile trail to a lovely waterfall.

Unfortunately the rest of the road above the Grove was closed. That wasn't a problem, except that I had printed out directions to the hotel and they took the closed road. I then proceeded to misread the map, but that was serendipity. We ended up going all the way up to Sunrise Visitors Center. That's the highest point in the park you can drive to. We got there in time to ask about tomorrow's hike (Skyline Loop) but didn't get much information. However the wifi at the Visitor's Center let me google the route back to the hotel (90 minutes, mostly down hill). I hadn't been to Sunrise the last time I was in the park because the clouds were so low that it was socked in; you couldn't see across a parking space. Today you could see much further, but still not the peak.

On the way down we stopped at one of the lookouts that we didn't have time for on the way up.

With my cold seeming to get stronger, we decided that tomorrow night would not be in a tent in Celtic Elk Campground (which honestly really sounds like a roadtrip type of place). Nights here might be in the low 50's or even high 40's and we didn't want to be fighting my cold and a cold night at the same time. I booked a room in the same hotel we are going to be in Saturday in Portland. It's better to have multiple nights in the same room when possible. My cold also puts tomorrow's hike in jeopardy if I don't feel better.