This Yoh! hike sure was an adventure. We originally were going to hike to Freemont Lookout at the Sunrise entrance to Mt. Rainier. After I returned from vacation I decided to change it to Spray Falls at the Mowich Lake entrance because it would be a little less strenuous. So off we went, and wouldn't you know it, we missed the turn off from Hwy 410 and ended up at the Sunrise entrance after all! This is why I should never be the designated driver.
Well, we ended up hiking Sourdough Ridge, which is the beginning of the trail to Freemont Lookout. However, we turned down instead of up and hiked a loop around Shadow Lake. In all we walked about 4 miles, which felt much longer as we were at a very high elevation of around 6400+ ft.
The trails had a lot of elevation changes and gave us a good little workout. We crossed a couple of small bridges & had to traverse a little snowy patch, but overall the trail was well maintained. There were tons of warning signs about bears, but we didn't see any. We did see a marmot & two chipmunks as well as tons of beautiful wildflowers. Unfortunately the clouds never dissipated so we didn't get a good view of the mountain. It turned out to be a great hike after all.
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| Michele, Tammy & Kassia at the start |
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| Wild Lupine |
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| Subalpine Daisies |
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| Not sure what these berries are. |
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| These gorgeous flowers are Paintbrush |
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| First chipmunk...on the right. |
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| Snow crossing |
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| Magenta Paintbrush |
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| Shadow Lake |
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| Second chipmunk (so nice of him to pose for me) |
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| We started out on that ridge in the background. |
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| These are Cascade Asters |
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| Emmons Vista |
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| These are False Hellebore which reminded us a little of Hostas |
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| Group Photo: Michele, Tammy, Kassia, Susan, Ces & Chris |
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| The visitor's center |
