July 14 // Mount Rainier, Washington [view photos]

The sum of our day was driving around and exploring the towering Mount Rainier, which can be seen for many miles and into northern Seattle on a clear day. I’ve been there once before, was very impressed, and was ready for a return visit to take Natalie to Paradise (the visitor’s area that leads to the summit) and then further west towards Comet Falls.

The view was breath-taking nearly every stop along the road that wound around Mount Rainier, and words just cannot describe the majestic beauty and mammoth size of this mountain. Sure I’ve seen it before, but it’s just one of those sites that you could absorb all day and not grow tired of it.

We took the trail towards Comet Falls at around 3:00 in the afternoon, with roughly a 1.7 mile hike ahead of us and warned that there was a bridge out just .3 miles ahead of Comet Falls — what they failed to mention was the amount of snow you’d have to traverse to even get near the downed bridge.

It was a really hard hike, with a ton of switchbacks (as I recalled from my last hike up there nearly ten years ago) and rough terrain in some areas. There was also an avalanche from earlier this year with the evidence fairly obvious — massive downed trees and thick snow damns that covered some of the trailways. But after an hour and fifteen minutes of hiking, we reached our gear limitations, a place that it’d be much safer to have poles and strap-on spikes to get any further. Defeated, we hiked back to the car and made our way back to dinner at the Pyramid Ale Brewhouse and our last night’s stay in Seattle before launching off to Victoria, British Columbia.

I’m glad we’re doing this trip, and I’m getting to see things that I have either never seen before or has been too long since I have. But the travel is wearing on me a little bit and it’s requiring a little more effort to enjoy some of sights. Sound a little too much like whining? Maybe, but with over 3,000 miles of travel in a week’s time, I think you’d probably be longing for a bit of the familiar as I am — simple things like our cats, our own bed, my personal space, sitting down to a few mindless hours on my computer — simple things.

Well, off to bed. We have an early day tomorrow.

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