The wildlife
gates are shut and I really wanted to get some fall color photos in the high
country.
Honestly I’m not in good enough
shape to do any of my normal late fall hikes such as Wagon Wheel or Mount
Rose. The Hamma Hamma road is still
closed as well.
Mount Rainier
is open to cars all year and is a two hour drive from home. I teamed up with my daughter and away we
went.
I drug us
both up the Skyline Trail. She might
have been in worse shape than me, it was a work out for both of us.
We live at Sea level and the trail starts at
over 5,000 feet. When acclimating to
high elevations it is recommended to do it by 5,000 feet at a time. We ended up at over 7,000 feet, so we were breathing
hard, but it was so worth it!
On our hike
we saw a marmot, a deer, several chipmunks, a few pika and a bear!
We also saw a ton of mushrooms
along the trail. But with it being a
National Park we were limited, but not as limited as I thought. The limit is one gallon each, where in Olympic
National Park the limit is one quart.
Still
you never know if the rangers know the actual mushroom harvest rules in their
own parks. There is at least one ranger
out there who is on a crazy vendetta and doesn’t even know his own park rules.
We had a
great time at Rainier and the crowds were not too bad, since we were there on
a weekday and luckily we just happened to hike in the opposite direction as almost
everyone else.
5.5 miles
with 1,600 feet elevation gain
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