Seattle is really lucky to be a Metro with a Major National Park less than 100 Miles away. Yahoo! maps direction to Mount Rainier from Kirkland/Redmond areas marks the total distance at no more than 80 miles.
While there are multiple Park entrances to the Mount Rainier National Park the only one Open year around is the Nisqually Entrance. As a rough guidance, the best times to visit Mount Rainier (excluding skiiers) is end of May to Late September/Early October). All other times the park is Open only from the Nisqually entrance to Paradise.
Mount Rainier's tallest peak is around14,000 feet. The videos/stories in the park museum bring out the difficultly in climbing this peak. But at 14,000 feet it is still only 1/3rd Mount Everest. Imagine How hard Mount Everest must be?
National Parks in the US are treasure, they are superbly maintained and manned by high quality men and women - the Park rangers. I Spoke to one during my Park Visit; apparently its quite hard becoming a Full Time Park Ranger. What amazing careers and lives these men and women must Have?
(A Shot taken from the Longmire National Park Inn)
(View of a Falls in Mount Rainier)
View from Paradise in Mount Rainier, True to its name it is Paradise
Mount Rainier is apparently an Active - yes I repeat an Active Volcano. There are Volcano escape routes all along Highway 7. While the exact number of Glaciers in Mount Rainier is probably a Quiz question, there are apparently more than 20. (Correct answer 26)
The National Park Inn right in the heart of the Park at Longmire is an amazing place to stay with no TV's and shared Baths. To get the best from a Mount Rainier Visit, I would recommend a sta
y in this Inn.
View of a Crow eating some food put by tourists at the Park. Feeding Wild Animals is the worst you can do to both the habitat and the animal.
2 comments:
Super blog.
in my short tryst with the US, I missed not having been to a National Park. I was just telling this friend the other day that one of the best things about the US is that if you wish then the place can take you right amidst the nature very easily.
and yes the life of those park rangers or for that matter the travellers on Travel and Living channel ;)
TC you guys,
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