Mt. Rainless… errr Mt. Ranier

I woke up bright and early at 4:40 am at the Four Points near the Philadelphia airport. It was a perfectly adequate bed to sleep in… but I’m wondering what all covid has done to the airport-near hotels like that. I took the shuttle to the airport and was initially daunted by the insane line to check in at 5:20 am, then I realized that was the line for Southwest and Frontier. It made me wonder 1.) What time flights began that it was so bonkers at 5 am and 2.) How early you had to get there to skip the line. I was thankful that precheck let me breeze through the five person security line instead of the five hundred person security line. After that I took the ten minute trek to the lounge to score some banana tahini smoothie, breakfast bruschetta, yogurt with granola, coffee and banana bread. Overall my flight to Seattle was uneventful… the flight attendant complimented my choice of starting out the plane ride though with a coffee and Bailey’s. I’m not sure my seatmates loved how much that made me need to go to the bathroom.

My flight got in a couple hours before my parents so I took the shuttle to the rental car garage and chilled until they got there. We waited about twenty minutes (or a subjective eternity… whichever sounds more reasonable) for a car to be ready. Luckily it is a Subaru Outback so we can jam all our crap into it. Our next destination was Mt. Ranier National Park. Along the way we made one stop for some groceries and a bathroom break in the town of Elbe. Elbe has an adorable little hotel where the rooms look to be old train cars. The ride into the park was absolutely gorgeous, although it’s hard for photos to do it justice. We made out scenic stop along the way because we noticed that there was blue sky around the mountain! Made for some pretty epic looking photos.

We are staying at the National Park Inn, which was described to Pops and me as “South Mountain.” We all must have very different ideas of what South Mountain is like… because the private room with plush bed and private shower are not quite what I think of. The food isn’t nearly as good as South Mountain though, so maybe that’s where the comparison evens out. We drank a beer on the porch and generally relaxed before heading up to the Paradise Inn for dinner with Bruce and Lynn. Bruce and I won meal selection with the strip steaks. Bravery is the primary attribute required to order fish here. The sunset over Mt. Ranier was absolutely spectacular as well. The mosquitos that happened to love me at sunset were less than spectacular.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early and drove back up to Paradise to start the Skyline Trail before all the crowds got there. All the guide stuff I had read said that this was the trail to do and ho boy were they right. The wildflower blooms were absolutely stunning. No joke every ten feet was a different photo worthy view of the mountain and/or surrounding area. We hiked clockwise which was the recommended route. I made sure to get a good panoramic photo at Panorama Point before we started hiking down. I say “down” lightly, as it also included about 700 ft of elevation gain. It was during the hike down we learned why clockwise was the recommended travel direction. My favorite valley photo didn’t turn out well for some reason, but the views everywhere we stunning with patches of wildflowers blooming everywhere. We encountered more people on the way down as the park got busier; and it was really interesting to see the various levels of (primarily lack thereof) preparedness.

After the hike we compared our various apps that tracked how far we had gone. I had to do a tenth-mile-of-shame because I forgot to start my watch and phone at the trailhead. Mom supposedly walked an entire mile farther than me and pops… and pops ended up walking more than me because he had to keep going backwards to get us to stop taking pictures. We then stopped in the visitor’s center to buy some souvenirs and lunch before heading back to the National Park Inn. After lunch, mom and I took a short little nature walk across the street and then I passed out for a two hour nap. It was glorious. Dinner was kinda eh, but the view from the front porch of the hotel more than made up for it. We played some games that we had gotten at the visitors center (strategy is not heavily rewarded) before turning in.

Pops and I woke up bright and early for a hike to Carter Falls and Madcap Falls. Mom’s response to being asked if she wanted to go on another hike at 6:30 am was “ehhhhh.” We found the trailhead and hiked down into the glacial melt riverbed… then crossed the trippiest bridge. It was scary enough that we needed to look down, but the raging torrent of water under our feet made us scared to look down. The hike was about 1.3 miles to the pair of waterfalls which were pretty cool. We snagged some photos before heading back. On the second trip across the bridge I was brave enough to take a photo of the creek. We got back to the hotel, ate some “breakfast,” packed the car, and took another little nature stroll before driving to the airport to pick up Mandy and Benson.