Day 46-July 14

The weather has been nice to us for our entire trip, until now.  The main reason to visit Mt. Rainier National Park is to see the mountain, of course.  We awoke on Wednesday morning to a damp, overcast day.  The clouds were actually down around our ears so to speak.  Our prospects of seeing Mt. Rainier were dim. Well onward and upward quite literally.  We began our day by taking the southern route through the park.  We were soon in the clouds which severely limited our sightseeing.  It actually turned out rather interesting as we soon found ourselves high into snow country again.  The Paradise area is supposed to offer a nice view of the mountain, but no such luck today.  The snow was piled high and it was so cold I would not have been surprised to see flakes falling at any moment.  We wound our way down and into the Longmire area where we enjoyed a chilly picnic lunch.  This is the first area of the park that was open to visitors.  They still have one of the touring vehicles that was used to take tourists on rides through the park.  We then made a trip around through Packwood for fuel, then back into the park and on north to Sunrise for one more possible glimpse of Mt. Rainier.  No luck, but it was amazing to see this much snow still on the ground in July.  As we were headed back toward camp we were met by a rather grubby fox that sat patiently waiting for a hand out. There are signs telling everyone not to feed the wildlife, but by his behavior it was obvious that someone can't read.  A little further on we stopped while a partridge worked very hard to get her brood across the road.  She obviously had way too many chicks because as she managed to get three on one side she realized that the other three had not followed.  Leaving her babies on one side she scurried back for the others.  As she headed back with them, one of the first group decided it would go see what was going on so she had to go back after it too.  It was really quite entertaining.
After a long day of trying to see Mt. Rainier we were ready for the comforts of home.



Reflection Lake.  It is hard to see much between the ice on the lake and the clouds on the mountain.



Taken through the window at Paradise visitor's center.  Yes Mt. Rainier is out there.

One of the many waterfalls.

Sunrise visitor's center.  Still no view of the mountain.



Our friendly, but very dirty, fox.



Jess was impressed with the Kenworth used to transport tourists through the park.