Month: September 2020

Although our weekly trip to Mt. Rainier ended this week because of dense smoke from numerous wildfires, we did manage to walk another piece of the Wonderland Trail by walking from Reflection Lake to Lake Louise last. week.  Unfortunately, my Sony camera suffered a malfunction at the beginning of the hike, and I had to resort to my iPhone 11 to take pictures.  

We had actually spotted Lake Louise on our Reflection Lake hike last year but had never visited it.  It’s a rather short hike from Reflection Lake, all downhill, except for the climb back to Reflection Lake.

It was the perfect hike for a hot day descending through a dense forest and crossing several creeks that feed the lake.

From the lake we could see the overlook where we headed next; it’s a lot higher than it looks in the picture.

This shot from the Overlook gives a much more accurate depiction of how far we climbed from Lake Louise.

Luckily, we reached the high point of our hike by noon and could enjoy the lush meadows that make up the High Lakes Trail.

We continue to have beautiful weather in the Pacific Northwest, and we’ve done our best to take advantage of it by trying to hike on Mt. Rainier once a week.  After our hike on the southeast flank of the mountain, we decided to hike the northeast flank.  Worried that there would be too many people hiking the main trail, we took another trail we had never done before and were pleasantly surprised — though we still saw more people than we expected.

The lack of recent rain was beginning to show as the trail was quite dusty and flowers next to the trail were looking parched.

This emerald lake hundreds of feet below looked mighty inviting, 

but we settled for a lunch stop at the much closer Shadow Lake.

Not sure where all the Canada Jays were, but the only wildlife we saw on the trail was this bold, little chipmunk.

Flowers galore, but none more striking than this Magenta Paintbrush,

Which isn’t to say that I ignored all the other flowers

even some that didn’t quite look like flowers.