Grand Park

We hiked to Grand Park today.  It's located inside the Mt. Rainier National Park but you hike in from outside the Mt. Rainier boundary.  Getting there was quite interesting since the trail head was not well marked and the 10 miles of gravel road to it went up hill on the side of a cliff with massive rock slides sparsed here and there.  I could feel the magnet of being too close to the cliff side as we drove up.  But, after taking one wrong turn, we found the trail.  We also found that we both forgot to pack my trekking poles or sticks as we like to call them.  I told Mark several times as we began the hike that I was going to beat myself with them upon arriving home. Thankfully that notion has passed.  We did not go too far in before he found me a real stick to suffice.

 A good majority of the trail looked like this and it would seem like there would be plenty of sticks to choose from but at 5k elevation, they were slim pickins for strong ones.  He did find one that made me much less slow walking though.   This trail has had severe storm damage and was not well marked.  We were the first ones to the trail head and by the look of it, I thought no one would get past the initial disaster area but in fact, we were just early and there were many people by the time we left at 3pm.  We arrived at 10am.

One mile in, after a major blow down area which we had to 4x4 off the trail quite a bit just to get through the mangled mess of trees, you'll find Lake Eleanor.  Gorgeous quiet stillness.  Three camp sites and an outhouse and when I say outhouse, I mean an open air with three 5 foot walls surrounding it, toilet. No door, no ceiling.  Pretty funny!  Samuel would have loved it.

Up and down (though mostly up) through mud, snow, bog, blow downs, creeks without bridges, and tons of forestry brought us to this little meadow which whet our appetite for what was next.

Mt. Rainier peeking at us ahead.  But wait, it gets better.

Would you believe that in my excitement in seeing this field, I put the stick Mark made me down to snap a few pictures and then LEFT IT THERE.  Of course I didn't notice right away since the walk was so simple but when we went straight back into the forest and started climbing uphill through blow downs in the snow, I was not impressed and this time there were no useful sticks to be found. 

 Back into the forest again.

 This creek actually had a bridge that took us into heavier snow.

Up to this point we had not seen a soul on the trail and with the snow, it began to get a lot harder and slower going.

 We stopped just after a blow down area so I could get a rock (that wasn't there) out of my shoe and it was then that we noticed another couple coming up quickly behind us.  We had trekked off the trail so much that we weren't even sure we were on the right one at that point but this couple reassured us that we were almost to Grand Park.  It was only a "little farther."  Try about an hour later of walking uphill in four feet of snow.  Walking uphill in snow is akin to walking uphill in sand.  HARD.

But gorgeous.   We'd just get to a plateau spot and think we were "there" and then there'd be another hill, and another, and another, and another.....you get the idea.  I still had NO sticks but I can walk uphill pretty well as the ground going up is closer to my face.

And finally, we got there, 3 miles in 3 hours.  Going back, of course was much easier because a Ranger came up behind us and marked the trail with red flags so when we 4x4 off the trail to go around the disaster areas, we could easily find it again.  It was also mostly downhill AND I had a new stick.  We got back in less than 2 hours.

Semi-dry snow free ground.  Finally!

Time to look for a lunch spot.

This looks good.

One of Samuel's friends came for lunch and just about walked right into my bowl of soup.  It was pretty cute and wasn't afraid of us at all.  Samuel loved birds as much as dinosaurs so whenever we are visited by a bird, we always think it's special.  Two of these birds (we do not know what they were) followed us a couple miles back down the trail when we headed back which was interesting and cool too.

 Enjoying our lunch and the view.  We hung out in Grand Park about an hour which was exhilarating and refreshing.

 Enjoying each other's company.

Enjoying the walk without a heavy pack.

 Pictures do not do this justice.

 But this one does.

And so does this one.

Mark wanted you to get the full 360 view from where we stood today so he suggested I take this short video while he was busily finding me a new stick to traverse downhill in the snow.  That one, I did not lose or forget.

My knee was nearly fine on this 7 mile hike and I told Mark on the way back that I was so happy about it (mostly) not hurting that I thought I might cry happy tears. Awesome. Love days like this!