Waymarking Rainier

We were moping about, feeling like the only people stuck at home over the long Memorial Day weekend, so we decided a day trip was in order. After ruling out any of the islands due to not wanting to wait in line or pay ferry fees, we decided on a day trip up to Mt. Rainier. My favorite entrance - Carbon River entrance - won't even open this season, and my next choice - Sunrise - doesn't open until June 15th. We settled for Longmire and Paradise. Of course "settling" is relative, as it's hard to find a spot in this large National park that isn't gorgeous.

We set out and on the way I talked the guys into stopping at a shooting range I read about that had a Paul Bunyan muffler man. There was some type of gun festival going on and as we wandered amongst the coyote skins, antler light fixtures and other assorted animal parts made into handy objects for the home, I wondered if I'd stepped into an alternate universe. Only waymarking would entice a me to enter a shooting club and actually waymark the place. We found the Paul Bunyan standing guard over a line of outhouses and quickly waymarked him and made our escape.

Our first stop inside the park was at the Longmire Historic District, the original administration district of the park. I'd never stopped at Longmire before and was impressed by the wide array of historic buildings the park was maintaining. My favorite was the old service station with its original pumps, pictured below. Inside of it there was a great photo showing a Model T at the pumps in the early 1900's. Other great stops are the historic administration building and the National Park Inn, which serves a great lunch. After walking around in the old housing quarters we came upon the cool suspension bridge below. I wonder if this one is a replacement after the storms of Winter 2006. A rainstorm dumped 12 inches of rain in less than 18 hours on the mountain, doing about 15 years worth of storm damage in one year, thanks to the awful flooding. Later in December a windstorm with winds topping out at over 110 mph further damaged the park, to the point that many popular areas such as the Wonderland trail and Carbon River road won't open this year.




After exploring Longmire and having a picnic in front of the old Admin building we continued up to the Paradise area. As expected, parking was a mess and the place was thick with people, but we still had fun. Hunter and Frodo played in the snow and after that we wandered through the Jackson Visitor Center, a great googie-style building that looks like a giant saucer swooped in and landed on the side of the mountain. Yesterday it was half buried in snow, but still accessible, as it is year round. Although most hate the building, I love it. I've heard that it will be torn down in the near future - very sad. It's too bad they can't renovate it and use it for another purpose. Even I will admit that the place is in serious need of some renovation. The pictures below show the Visitor center from the road, and an interesting stand of snags across the road from it.



Nearby, renovation work continues on the beautiful old Paradise Lodge (still in my queue for submission in multiple categories). Thanks to the short work season up there, the work seems to be taking forever. I'm not sure how many years are left before it opens again. The Guide Center next door, shown below the lodge photo, is still open and being used as the starting point for folks planning on climbing the mountain from Paradise.



Finally, we made our way back home after Hunter had tired of playing in the snow, and Frodo had tired of eating and peeing in the snow (in different spots, thankfully.) Now I am faced with the task of posting the 30 or so waymarks that I took during the visit (9 new categories waymarked in). I'm about half done and will try to finish up the rest over the course of the next week. All in all, a very good day - even if the Mountain refused to emerge from the clouds.