PNW & Big Sky Country
September 2022
12 out of the 30 days on the road and I don’t think I’d want to live in a metropolitan city again. After being weird in Portland, where everyone is pickling something (carrots, onions), I headed back into the wilderness that was Washington, Mount Rainier National Park. I slept through the night at Big Creek campground as pinecones and branches fell on my tent, it sounded like rain but it was merely the wind playing games. My site was surrounded by mossy covered trunks and brown crunchy leaves, and I couldn’t see across the way nor the pavement which was covered in brown pine cones and threads. I sat around until I was ready to drive into the park.
By 11am, I started off with Narada Falls trail which led me to a fork in the path so I went left, which really just turned into a rightful 3 hour hike, sometimes steep with roots sticking out through the dense forest, always blue skies until time became grey. Sounds of the flowing creek ran parallel with the wind. I got to Reflection lake for a break but the reflection was so muddled due to the current southeastern wildfire. Over it, I continued on my hike.
It even took me across the road to a meadow with wild huckleberries, where I observed an older Asian couple crouching down and collecting handfuls, and yes I collected too and ate so many along the way toward Paradise. That’s a real place. Once I got to the visitor center, which was so touristy and too people-y for me having just come out of the trail of very few to no faces, I bought jerky and cheese then promptly sat at one of communal tables, where I met a girl and her father. We talked trails and coasts and film cameras. Social interaction was goodly made. Afterwards I thought about Nisqually vista trail but skipped it and went back the way I came and conquered, collecting more wild berries because those fruits hadn’t poisoned me yet! The joke is that they are psychedelic because Mount Rainier is peaceful but also an active volcano.
By this time, it was nearly 6pm and as I drove around Paradise road looking for a paved inlet to park, I found the spot. The sky had turned smokey as it waited for the orbing sun to turn orange. A brighter ring around it took charge, replacing the days blues with the evenings anger. Wind didn’t blow me over like yesterday but the ongoing fire hadn’t been any more contained. More smoke and haze almost fully covered Mount Rainier’s face but it shone a vivid outline of its mountainous terrain with existing white patches, somehow more determined to exist than to dissolve with the hazed zone. Neither did the mountains behind the forefront ones dissolve away, these distant outlines were more visible as sunset fell and the pinks and purples gave way to simmer the grey from overtaking the mood.
On the way back to camp, I saw a marmot and those animals look like a beaver/seal. They run funny too. My favorite national park from this trip is this one with Crater lake moving to second place. Sorry ranger Christoph. Upon the booth station, I initially met ranger Sam around 4pm at the end of day 1 of being in Washington because I wanted a map to sketch out my hikes. We ended up talking for 30 minutes about black bears and other national parks doing starter pack posts (“Yellowstone probably has crocs, USA shirts and dad shorts”) as visitors were leaving the park. There was nobody behind me as she gave me more maps which made me have even more questions! Thus, a long conversation, as if we were friends before, about the best viewpoints for sunrise and set. Then the morning of day 13, I was surprised that we met again at a different booth station and we exchanged short stories for a solid 15 minutes catching up in continuation from yesterdays. This time, the line behind me was long.
