Snow, Snow and More Snow

Every morning as we set out, I often start thinking about a title for the blog.  Today my first idea was "Traveling between the Two Peaks" since we were going to be driving between Mt. St. Helens to our south and Mt. Rainier to our north as we drove along Highway 12.  My second idea was "Heading Back East" since today was our first day of driving back eastward toward home.  Then, as we got south of Mt. Rainier, we decided to take a long side trip and drove up to Mt. Rainier National Park and spent the middle of the day enjoying the magnificent views and the snow.  For most of the trip we have been viewing the snow-covered mountains from a distance, but today we got to be in the snow, up close and personal.

First, as  we were driving along Highway 12, we saw a sign for a scenic view of Mt St. Helens.  We drove up the small side road until we came to the overlook.   It was a very distant view of the mountain and not very clear since it was so far away.

Mt. St. Helens from really far away

When we came to the sign for the turnoff to Mt. Rainier, on the spur of the moment, we decided to drive up to the Mt Rainier National Park so we could really see it and because Eb had never been in Mt. Rainier Park (I had been there when our family went to visit the Seattle World Fair).  We entered the Park at the Stevens Creek entrance.  It turned about to be a good decision and we had a wonderful time on this unplanned side trip - only we didn't have enough time to do all that we would have liked.

Here we are at one of the first good views of Mt. Rainier

We drove up the park road to Paradise Inn (5, 400 feet in elevation).  In the park information it indicated that the road had just opened July 1st and only remains open until October 15th.  At the beginning of the drive we were going through heavily forested woods and rushing streams and waterfalls.  We had numerous spots along the way up where we could view Mt. Rainier, as well as the sharp craggy peaks alongside.  The road had numerous places where it dropped off sharply on the side with no guard rail for reassurance.   The higher we got, the more snow we saw in the distance, and then, finally, the snow was all around us.  The patches of snow grew larger and more numerous the higher we climbed.  The small lakes along the road were still ice and snow covered.  The melting snow made magnificent large and small waterfalls along the edge of the road.

Mt. Rainier, at 14, 471 feet tall, is the tallest peak in the state of Washington.  Mt. Rainier, as with the other tall peaks around there is a volcanic mountain.  The top of the mountain is covered with several glaciers, one of which is Paradise Glacier.  The average snowfall at Paradise Inn is 700 inches, while the record snowfall is 1,100 inches. .  Last year they had 900 inches of snow.  The hillside behind the Inn was still completely snow covered and people were hiking up and sliding down.  The height of the snow along the sidewalk was about 10 - 12 feet high.  You could see the layering in the snow, seeing the amounts that accumulated in different storms.

Right behind Paradise Inn

A young fox sunning himself (herself?)

As we drove back down from Paradise Inn, we had snow banks much taller than the car on both sides of the road.  Very near the beginning of our descent we came upon several people with cameras standing in one of the turnoffs.  They indicated to us that there was a very young fox along side the edge of the road up against the snow.   We joined them in watching and taking pictures.  The snow covered the ground under the trees in the woods.  The mounds of snow were piled along the side of the road.  There was snow everywhere, particularly on the north facing slopes.   It was not just a light covering of a few inches;  the snow was many feet deep.   I was most amazed by the young pine trees that only had their tops sticking out through the snow;  the thought that they could survive such harsh conditions.

 

View down the road just below Paradise Inn.

We enjoyed a quick picnic lunch as we came back down near the park entrance.

We drove north in the park through the snow and woods until we came to Highway 410 which took us east across the Chinook Pass at 5, 430 feet and on to I-82 at Yakima.  Once we crossed over to the eastern side of the mountains we were in the "rain shadow" and immediately were in a semi-arid plains habitat.   All you viewed was dried brownish grass and the light green sage brush bushes.

As we got further eastward on I-90 and out in to the flatter valleys, we were in to rolling farm land and fruit orchards that all benefited from irrigation.   We saw spillways where the river water was routed in to channels leading out in to the fields.  We saw large "sprinklers" watering huge fields.  As we got to the town of Naches, we stopped at a fruit market and bought a large flat of Rainier cherries, which are yellow or yellow and red cherries, that are just as sweet and taste the same as our Bing cherries.

As we were continued driving eastward we saw a huge collection of wind turbines.  The Wild Horses Wind Farm Project has 127 wind turbines covering an area of 900 acres.   They are very tall and the blades are huge.   The one display showed that wind turbines are taller than the Statue of Liberty, but not quite as tall as the Seattle Space Needle.

Just a few of the windmills at Wild Horse.

Tonight we are staying in the Ramada Inn in Spokane Valley, just east of Spokane and almost on the Idaho border.  We have gotten back to where we were on Wednesday, June 29th when we were in Coeur D'Alene and then that Thursday we drove north through Spokane and up to Oroville.  We have made a big loop up to Manning and British Columbia and then out to the Olympic Peninsula, and now we are back here on the Idaho / Washington border.  Tomorrow we will retrace our drive across Idaho along I-90 and drive into Montana to Bozeman before driving down to spend three days in Yellowstone and the Tetons.  Then it will definitely be time to head due east to home.