On our last day at Rainier, we headed over to the Sunrise side--I wish we had a week to backpack around the mountain! The Paradise side was beautiful but I found the Sunrise side really amazing--way less people and it seemed like a lot more trail options.
We headed out on the trail to the Mt. Fremont fire tower and almost immediately saw a bear. Very close. We started backing up and the bear started coming down the trail towards us. Holy cow, I was seriously so full of adrenaline! Fortunately there was a ranger there who was hiking just in front of us and so she gave us directions on what to do and when it was safe to start again.
Whew! That adrenaline rush lasted another mile or so for all of us, I think we were hiking along at a really good clip afterwards, especially once we hit a stretch where we would NOT have been able to get off the trail at all to give the bear space.
I thought my dad looked very much like he belonged in the Swiss Alps.
As we got closer to Rainier, the views started getting pretty spectacular! This is from the fire tower looking across the valley. I felt like we got a better sense of just how insanely enormous Rainier was since we weren't on its lower slopes.
We hung out at the fire tower for awhile and ate some snacks--it was still early enough that we weren't ready for lunch (like I said we were hiking pretty fast!).
I love this photo--both just soooo happy!
Eventually we started hiking back towards the intersection with the Burroughs trail, which my dad and I had taken one look at and then told everyone yep we are adding that on today, looks freaking amazing.
Sooo happy.
I loved hiking back from the fire tower because we had such a good view of Rainier the whole time!
Can you spot the mountain goats in the next picture?
The trail up to the First Burroughs was pretty icy for quite a ways and we crossed a big snowfield that required all my concentration, so no pics until we were at the top of the First Burroughs.
I mean this VIEW!
The hike to Second Burroughs had some pretty sketchy bits because of snow/ice, but dang it was worth it. I seriously could not get over how beautiful it was. We watched some climbers for awhile and they really gave us a good perspective on just how enormous Rainier is.
And Dad and Juliet took a nap.
We finally ate lunch and very reluctantly decided we needed to head back to Sunrise--the Third Burroughs was so enticing!
From this side you had a pretty good look at the volcanic crater at the top. This side looked WAY more like a volcano since you could see the path of past eruptions/mudflows.
I can't remember what route we took back--it was a hodgepodge of trails all smashed together, but I remember it was very steep and pretty sketchy in places and we all agreed that we were REALLY glad we were coming down vs. hiking up it, since it was exhausting just going down!
Great view of a lahar (mudflow).
We stopped to rest for a bit at this overlook spot and started chatting with another group of hikers--I think the first we'd seen in miles! And wouldn't you know, they were next-door neighbors with Neil's uncle in Utah. Haha!
Then guess what--we saw another bear! Much bigger and with zero interest in us, but the two girls hiking by themselves near us tagged into our noisy crew for the next mile. Smart choice.
Such an incredibly beautiful place and so hard to leave!
Back at the campsite for our last dinner in Rainier!
I just loved this campground SO much. (It even had service if you walked down to the visitor center. I loved that--it was close enough that you could walk there in 10 minutes or so, but far enough that you had to make an effort and could reasonably ignore the internet for 99% of the time.)
Even the bathrooms were scenic! (Outside anyway.)
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