Wildflowers galore, Camp Muir, Glissading

 Dan planned today's hike: Skyline to Camp Muir. He said he picked it because he likes mountains. This is true - Dan does like mountains. So, we set off early armed with lots of water, sunscreen, microspikes, trekking poles, ice axes, and PB&Js (of course). Much to our surprise, if you get to Mt Rainier National Park early enough, you get to enter for free.😃

Morining at Reflection Lake

Mt Rainier is looms massive as you drive up to the hiking trails.

A quote from John Muir is engraved into the steps leading to the hiking trails: 

"The most significant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I have ever beheld in all my mountaintop wanderings." 

Usually when we hike, we just start and don't really stop or take breaks. Well, Mt Rainier and all of the alpine flowers had me constantly stopping to take pictures. I may have taken way too many photos of this stunning landscape.

Avalanche lily: one of the 1st flowers to emerge from the snow

Magenta paintbrush and pink heather

This was a brave marmot on the trail. We were admiring all of the beautiful flowers when it wondered over and gobbled down a bunch of magenta paintbrush. I guess it really likes wildflowers too, just for different reasons.

At Pebble Creek, we reached the continuous snowfields. It was here that the real uphill slog began.

Refueling with a bar partway up

On the right hand side is Camp Muir, just below the last set of rocks.

Camp Muir sits at 10,084ft and is where mountaineers hoping to summit sleep before waking up at midnight to summit. Only 50% actually make it to the summit.

When we arrived at Camp Muir, there were several climbers who had just summited and were taking a break before descending the final 5000ft to the parking lot. Helicopters were moving supplies to and from the camp while we were there. It was a bustling place.

You can see the helicopter in the top of this photo

Standing on a glacier next to Camp Muir

A photo just before we began our descent

After refueling at Camp Muir with our PB&Js, we were ready to head down. It was sooooo fun glissading down the snow. Our pants were not waterproof so we got very cold, wet biscuits.

We used our poles like paddles

Once we were back on the Skyline Trail, I was back to admiring the alpine flowers. 

Snow bridge

Bear-grass: Indigenous people use this plant to weave baskets

This bridge was a bit broken, but still worked

It was a super fun hike - Dan did a good job of planning it. Back in town, it was still over 100 degree, so we ate some quesadillas and gave the Airstream Ice Cream truck some business. Dan decided that we would have a mellow day the next day.