Playtime!: Mt. Rainier: Narada Falls & Wonderland Trail

We were very lazy this morning – not really getting moving until about 10:00.

We started the day driving back up the road to Paradise so we could check out the Nisqually River bridge, which Dad and I could see from the trail yesterday, and other sites along the road. We’d seen several overlooks and waterfalls to check out.

We stopped a Narada Falls to use the porta-potties and as we were getting back into the Jeep Mom spotted a mouse in the car! My parents had a bit of mouse problem that we discovered in North Cascades but they caught a mouse when we were at Mt. St. Helens so we assumed that the problem was taken care of. We chased the mouse around the car for a few minutes, then mom saw it run out across the parking lot – we assume that was the mouse from our car!

We continued down the road checking out overlooks and such before heading back up to Paradise. We had lunch at the Paradise Inn, it was ok – pretty much what I would expect at a National Park Inn. Then we walked over to the Visitor Center. When I walked up to the information desk the Ranger was discussing the Paradise area trails with a guy – I overheard part of their conversation when he was telling the guy that the Skyline Trail was closed. I strongly advised the guy NOT to try and hike it. The Ranger said that they had people out there today marking the trail but that it was in fact closed. I related to him what the other Ranger had told me and suggested that they communicate more clearly when trails are closed. Dad and I NEVER would have gone down there if we’d been warned that is was snow covered and clearly the Rangers knew that the trail was hazardous.

After lunch we headed back to Narada Falls and Dad and I headed down the trail and Mom drove back to the campground. Our plan was to hike down to Narada Falls and then continue on the Wonderland Trail back to the campground.

The Wonderland Trail is 93 miles and it goes around the perimeter of the park – the movie said that it had 23,000 ft of elevation change! That has to be up and down as Mt. Rainier is only 14,400 – so that number doesn’t make much sense!

The Wonderland Trail is much lower so there was no snow at all! This trail was impossible to lose! It was wide and even flat in places! It followed the Paradise River but you really couldn’t see it. There were 2 waterfalls, both were pretty big. The scenery was not quite as impressive as the alpine hike we did yesterday, but it was nice! This hike was in the forest and there were tall trees and moss covered rocks and ferns! It was a nice gentle hike – all downhill, but not uncomfortably down hill!

At the end of the hike we crossed the Nisqually River and had great views of Mt. Rainier. Clouds were now covering the summit and big clouds were rolling in from the East – which seems strange, we’ll have to see what they do!