July 4 - Mt. Rainier

What better way to spend the day riding up Washington's highest peak.  So on Monday we headed up to Mt. Rainier on the bike. It was cold but super sunny again which the natives told us was very rare this year. One couple said that it snowed there only last Thursday! By the time we got to the Paradise Visitors Center at the top, the snow was 11 feet high but the temps were in the 60s.

The nice lady that parked her Sportster next to us took our pic.

Here's a view inside the Paradise Lodge, with a dining and hotel area.  National Park lodges are always cool places.

Lots of hikers were headed up to the top, which is no less than a 10 hour trek, only to hike or ski down the next day. They looked like ants from where we stood.  Click on the picture and you can see the blue color of all the glaciers on the mountain, each with a different name.

We took a marked hike on top of 11 feet of snow on the Nisqually Vista Trail. The views were unbelievable! The water was running down rocks about everywhere.

 

All the way up and down the mountain there were waterfalls everywhere you looked.  Here's our first try at putting a video on the blog.  This waterfall is worth watching.