I grew up in the Seattle area, and now have settled in Portland, Oregon, which is close enough to Mount Rainier to make an easy weekend getaway.įunny enough, I had never actually been to Mount Rainier until fairly recently, despite growing up in a suburb of Seattle. In this guide, we’ll go through the best hikes in Mount Rainier National Park, according to me, a Pacific Northwest local. Well, we’re here to tell you that it’s even better up close, which you can only experience by heading two hours south of Seattle and hitting the hiking trails in Mount Rainier National Park. It’s rare enough with the gray and drizzly weather that you often find in Seattle between roughly October and May (okay, July) that it’s always a treat to catch a glimpse of the towering snowy peak. There’s nothing better than a clear day in Seattle when you can see Mount Rainier to the south, the Olympics to the west, the Cascades to the East, and Mt. Whenever I’m in Seattle, which is fairly often since I grew up in the area and my family still lives there (though we now live in Portland), my favorite days are the ones where you can see Mount Rainier as you’re driving east on I-90 from Bellevue into Seattle. The Ultimate Enchantments Trail Guide Expand.If you do not wish to take the hike, at least stop here and walk over to the bridge next to the parking area and take a quick look down, you will happy you did. Summer often comes late in this sheltered area of the park and even when the west side of the trail is still buried in snow, the more open east side may very well be passible to the footbridge as was the case when we first visited in June following a heavy snowfall winter. While crossing the bridge, one again gets views into the canyon although they are not as good as those from the footbridge. After the footbridge, the trail quickly turns left again heading south through a densely forested area and when one emerges, back at the road, turn left again and cross the bridge to return to the starting point. From the footbridge, one has an excellent view down into this incredibly deep and narrow canyon and can see the rushing water below and the gracefully carved and polished canyon walls. About halfway through the hike, the trail takes a sharp turn to the left (west) and uses a footbridge to cross the canyon. The first leg, on the east side of the canyon, is quite open and passes by rocky areas where one can easily see grooves in the rocks that were scratched-out as a glacier dragged rocky debris over the surface. To hike the easy but excellent 0.5 mile (0.8k) loop trail, cross the road to the trailhead and take the loop in a counter-clockwise direction. Unfortunately, from this overlook one can hear the water rushing below but cannot see more than a glimpse of it from here perhaps the best part of this overlook is the excellent view of snow-capped Mount Adams to the south on a clear day. From the parking area, there is a short path to the south that leads to an overlook with some interpretive signs. The parking for this trail is located on the south side of the road just east of the canyon and is relatively large with reasonably clean restroom. The rushing water carrying debris large and small has carved and polished the sides of this narrow canyon into smooth graceful undulations easily visible from the footbridge and the road’s bridge over the canyon. The canyon, as deep as 180 feet (55m) and as narrow as 13 feet (4m), has been carved though the dense volcanic rock by the Muddy Fork of the Cowlitz River. This amazing canyon is located on Stevens Canyon Road 12 miles (19.3k) west of the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center or 17.5 miles (28.2k) east of Longmire.
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