Mount Rainier

The night before I had planned on fixing my 24 mini power trail just outside of my hometown, other than that, I had no other plans.  The next morning I got an 8 am wake up call from Bev stating that they would be going to Mount Rainier and if I wanted to go.  She talked me into it.  They gave me until 9 to get ready.  I ran a query for the area, put clothes on and got some food ready.  They got here around 9:10.  We headed out towards Eatonville and had to go through Eatonville because of the Hwy 7 detour.  The road is still under construction.  I’d like to know when it will be done.  I am getting tired of the detour though town, it takes up too much time.

 We got to the gate and I found out Bev bought a senior pass for $10.  It gets you into any National Park in the US for free forever.  It’s a great deal.  We arrived at Longmire, parked the car and did the first earthcache.  Bob and Bev have done this one already so they knew what to do.  We had to go to the visitor’s center and borrow a thermometer.  We would be taking various temperatures of water throughout our walk.  It was a fun unique cache.  I have not done one that required a thermometer.  We finished, took the thermometer back and headed up the mountain towards Paradise.   

 We stopped at Christine Falls for some photos.  There were quite a few people at this spot.  Next was another earchcache Bob and Bev have done already.  Narada Falls, a horsetail falls, that comes from the Paradise River which eventually flows into the Nisqually River.  We continued up the mountain.  We saw some really breathtaking views of the mountain, the valleys and other small peaks and hills as we ascended.

We got to Paradise and had lunch out in the parking lot with the mountain in front of us.  It was quite a view.  We walked to the visitor’s center and found the gift shop.  The guy who helped us is also a geocacher.  We talked for a bit while we discussed benchmarks.  We went out to the lobby and I recognized someone behind the desk.  I knew Ashley worked at Mt. Rainier but I never thought I would see her.  We chatted for a while.  She said Kelsey worked there too and was going home for the weekend.  When we left the center, I heard my name, “VAL!”  Kelsey found me on her way over to the cars to go home.  I couldn’t believe she found me.  We talked for a while before she had to go.  Small world.

 We went back to the car and drove towards Reflection Lake.  Once again, Bob and Bev had already done the earthcache at the lake but they stopped for me and they wanted to see the view.  I got everything I needed and we were off again, this time to Box Canyon.  We got there and did the necessary calculations to claim a find.  The view was pretty awesome too.

 The next one took us to the Ohanapecosh Campground.  There were two earthcaches inside the park.  We went for the first one, which had to do with the 2006 storm that destroyed all the trees, river banks and displaced animal habitats.  We answered the questions and took the necessary pictures.  The river was so blue!  We walked over to the visitor’s center to get the thermometer we would need to finish the cache.  Another thermometer cache!  Woot!  We read what we had to do and took the mini loop around the camp ground.  It surprised me the range of temperatures we recorded.  The stream was about 46 degrees and one of the hot springs was 110 degrees!  Woah!  We took the thermometer back to the visitor’s center, logged our findings in the book and headed back to the car.

 We followed the road and it eventually took us to Hwy 12.  We spent too much time at a cache that wasn’t there.  However, I did find a five dollar bill on the ground as we walked towards the car.  Score!  We continued on to the next one.  We grabbed a few more along Hwy 12, one included a really cool cave. 

We stopped in Packwood to get gas and to decide of we wanted dinner or not.  I didn’t have cell service so we used the pay phone.  Something I haven’t done since high school.  It cost 75 cents to make a call!  I remember when it only cost a dime.  Oh well, I called my mom to tell her where I was and she knew because of my post earlier on Facebook.  I love Facebook just for that reason.  We ended up not getting anything at the store so we settled for bananas and the rest of our snacks. 

We headed back to Ashford via Skate Creek Rd, another thing I have not come across since high school.  I believe it was with Willmarth the last time we went to Zillah before my senior year for basketball; that was in 2001.  We grabbed a few as we got closer to Ashford.  We did encounter this one near a river that hadn’t been found in almost a year.  We thought we would give it a good looking before we went on.  About 5 minutes into the search, Bob found it.  I was stunned!  One more for us!

We headed to Elbe, through Eatonville and they dropped me off at home about 8:45 that evening.  We had a great time at the mountain and would love to go again another time.