7/29 Mount Rainier National Park

A lot of days I am either driving through dull areas or sitting in my motorhome working or relaxing.  Today I drove to Mount Rainier and spent most of the day getting to the highest visitor center and then driving back home.

I love this park entrance!  All national parks should have such an impressive "doorway"!

A few miles in, I drove across a bridge and saw this, so I pulled over and walked back. This river is at least 25' feet wide, so distances are deceiving.  Can you imagine how many mud flows and floods have occurred here over the eons?  

This is a close-up.  Can you see the waterfalls?  One is fairly close and on the left.  The other is a little to the right of the middle and in the far distance about a third of the way from the top of the photo.  Wow!

This is the view down-river, from the opposite side of the bridge. 

There was a small sign pointing the way to an overlook.  Terrific view!  There were quite a few climbers on the snowfield just behind and to the left of the tall tree on the right.

Hard to see, but each little dot is a person climbing or walking on the snowfield. 

Just a nice view of a valley and river.

This is the top of Christine Falls.  The next photo shows the bottom and the rainbow. It was a steep and slippery walk down the path to the lower viewing platform, and I was not wearing good shoes or carrying my hiking pole, but I made it without falling.

I did not take many photos of the visitor center because I had already taken a lot of the mountain.  Parking was very tight, but I managed to find a place a long walk away.  This was some sort of service building, not the visitor center.  

This is a view of that bridge I had stopped at on the way up and the stream that flowed under it.

 

A lot of really big trees to drive through. This part of the road was very narrow, but luckily one-way.  

Nice to get home!  My upper arms and shoulders were very sore from wresting the steering wheel.  My vehicle is not that hard to drive on flat ground, but when you have to be constantly steering, it can get tiring.