Mt Rainier

A couple of days ago I left Glacier National Park and drove to Washington via the REI in Missoula.  I bring this up because I bought some socks there that are guaranteed for life.  This I can't believe.  These may be the last hiking socks I ever buy.

I am staying with friends who live near Mt Rainier for a couple of days.  Yesterday I went up to Paradise and hiked the high skyline trail.  On the way up I found a boot.  Several climbers were lost earlier this year in a storm and they are looking for their gear as they haven't yet been found.  I was pretty sure that it wasn't their boot because it was in pretty good shape.   However, someone lost their boot and I hoped to find them before they hiked all the way back.  I never found them so I ended  up dropping it off a the visitor at the end of my hike.

I had great views of Mt Rainier all along the hike yesterday.  I also saw a doe and two spotted fawns, numerous marmots, and  a bear.

Today I headed up to the Sunrise area.  I hiked the Burroughs Loop.  It was cloudy and wet at the start of the hike.   It was the first day that I was unable to hike in shorts.  I  consider it a warm up for the TMB that starts in less than a week.  I was in long pants, tshirt, long sleeve shirt, wool zip jacket, hat and gloves and my Marmot jacket.  I  climbed the first two mountains with no view except for the clouds.  As I started climbing the third mountain it began to clear and I had spectacular views of  the mountains and glaciers.  I was just across from them on the Third Burroughs mountain.  From there I hiked down to the glacier camp trail.  There I realized I was in  for a bit more than I thought.  The ranger gave me the impression that the hike was about 6 miles 1500 elevation.  In actuality it was more like 13 miles and over 4000 ft elevation gain - 2200 ft of that elevation gain was in the last three miles of the hike.  Although it was a bit of a surprise, I was able to do it without much  thought which is a good omen for the TMB hike next week.