I've always meant to do this hike. It's one of the few in MRNP I don't think I've ever done. So, on a midweek morning, off I go. Had some fat tourist in the Chinook Pass parking lot ask me where my camera was, I gave him a snotty sideways glance and said, ""in my pack."" Perhaps I should say here that the wildflowers at the Pass are SPECTACULAR! Western Anemone (in HippyFlower seed head finery), lupine, mountain daisies, paintbrush, gazillions of flowers in spectacular bloom. Amazingly the area around Tipsoo Lakes is not trampled out in the least bit. Looks just like a postcard.

Anyway, I headed counterclockwise on the trail (that's the wrong way, do it the other way), saw some killer wildflowers and had a nice walk despite the throngs. I'll bet I saw 75 people up there today. Midweek! Besides big views of Rainier, you get a nice view of a cinder cone, Adams off in the distance, and views of Dewey Lakes along the way. There's a nameless tarn on the William O. Douglas Wilderness leg of the loop, and one on the MRNP leg of the loop. The one on the WODW side is the nicer one. It's pretty buggy down by the Deweys, and the campsites on the south shore are all closed for revegetation, though that wasn't stopping some people. Besides some minor wear and tear over in the revegetation area, and some erosion from stock on the descent to the Deweys, the trail's in good shape and there is not a speck of snow anywhere.

The roadwork in the area between Cayuse Pass and Chinook Pass is nearly complete, and it is, in typical NP fashion, really nice and cool. Stone curbs and barriers, the whole nine yards.

This hike has the rare distinction of having no use fee attached to it. The parking lots are MRNP's, and there's no fee at Chinook Pass, and no Trail Park Pass requirement. According to the guy I talked to at the Gifford Pinchot NF-Naches Unit office, it's the only hike in the GPNF that is free.

Normally we go mid-week, to avoid the crowds on this picture perfect 5 mile loop. But this year, as they fix the road at Chinook Pass, we suggest you (also) go on the weekend when the crews are gone, they don’t keep closing one lane, and the trucks don’t compete with the picas. We’re there every year – the flowers are at an all time best. We counted 49 that we knew, and a few that we’ll know next time.

Beautiful hike, the road crew on the pass was very noisy on the first and last part of the hike. I imagine they will be futher on soon. The traffic getting through the pass was not too bad, we came in on Friday when the road is not closed completely. We did have to walk through construction on the way back to the parking lot. We identified 9 different wildflowers and there were 3-4 that weren't in our small field guide. When we stopped to look at Bench Lake, there was a group of very noisy hikers that interrupted the peacefullness of the view- try to remember that voices carry and ssshhhhh!!!!

Never has a 3.5 mile hike taken me so long. Never have I already expended 3/4 of the film I brought with me by 8:00AM either! Seeing that the flowers were so excellent around the PCT area above Bullion Basin yesterday, I used my other day out this week to head back down to the area to explore the PCT south of Chinook Pass. I was yet again looking at a day stuck in the clouds of fog like much of yesterday...I couldn't hardly see more than 100' driving up toward Cayuse Pass. But alas, a short 1/4 mile from Chinook Pass the east winds kicked up, and blue sky appeared!

I left the Chinook Pass trailhead at 6:10AM (take note---traffic was GREAT driving down between 4:15AM-5:55AM!) in a bitter wind and immediately was greeted by massive western anemone and avalanche lily displays right out of the parking lot and across the roadway bridge. Things just got better and better, and by the time I was near the first un-named lake the entire SE mountainside of Naches Peak was a riot of magenta, red, yellow, blue, purple, white, more yellow, and fuzzy heads of the spent anemones. Blue sky, sunrise sunlight streaming in from behind me, and sure enough I was through seven of the ten rolls of slide film that were in my pocket by the time I hit the junction that leads down to Dewey Lakes at 8:10AM (yeah, two hours for about 1.3 miles of hiking). The only difficulty was the nearly constant wind---a blessing for the surprise of clear beautiful sunshine, a curse for wildflower photography! Patience won out as usual, and photographing heather is always a sure bet when the avalanche lilies are bouncing all over, since they don't dance so darn much! I also enjoyed a few vast areas of sub-alpine spirea which one doesn't see in that many areas.

As I worked my way more quickly around the south and west sides of Naches Peak I still didn't expect to have views of Mount Rainier due to the persistant low clouds that were there just hours earlier. However, as I crested over a high point, I was greeted with a view that not only blew my socks off, but almost took my shorts with them---the low clouds were way down below still filling in the valley a bit, but everything else was crystal clear and bingo: there went the rest of my film! Stunning meadows of flowers, views of The Mountain, and another small lake. I exhausted my film supply after three or four great stops along a 1/2 mile stretch through here, snacked, and then started for home.

Rather than jaunt a short 1/4 mile to Tipsoo Lake and Chinook Pass to complete the loop, I retraced my steps so I could enjoy the dance that nature was performing on this magical day. By now I hadn't seen more than two folks, but enroute back the wave of others knowing the flowers were dancing were arriving, include no fewer than two ""guided"" tours by the native plant society and others of groups of 10+ slowly looking over plants. I awaite areas out of Sunrise in the next week or two to see if they can match the show put on today! I maybe didn't see all of the snowshoe hares, deer, and elk that I saw yesterday up on the PCT north of Chinook Pass, but then again an entire herd of elk could have come up behind me and stolen my breakfast from my backpack, and I wouldn't have known it since I was so enriched with what else I was seeing. Back to the rig by 10:15AM and heading on home against the wave of traffic going for their Sunday drives.