Spray Park is a real wildflower paradise right now! What a gorgeous day it was today: the park was above the clouds, the Mountain was out, the wildflowers were at their best, and there were barely any bugs! The drive to the parking lot was rainy but right at Mowich lake it was sunny at 7:30am. Hike through the forest was foggy/humid but once I got into the meadows at 9:30am the sun was shining and the flowers were all around. I didn't see any wild animals though this time. The flowers that I recognize that were blooming: tiger lilies, columbine, magenta painbrush, lupin, bear grass, and sitka valerian. There were many more, I just don't know all the names. If you like wildflowers this is the time to go to Spray Park! P.S. I'll attach a link to my Flickr page once I post my flower pictures there in a couple of days.

5 days and 4 nights incorporating sections of the Wonderland Trail, Spray Park Trail, and daytripping to Skyscraper Pass. Joined by Mom and Dad (average age: 71) and Debbie and John. Fantastic trip! Day 1: Mowich Lake to Eunice Lake to Ipsut Pass to Carbon River camp - started in mist, stayed in mist all day. A few bugs at Eunice lake. Steep, moist, and brushy avalanche chute from Ipsut Pass down to the Carbon River rainforest, then better tread to Ipsut Camp. From there easy uphill walking to Carbon River Camp. That trail is in good condition. Carbon River camp is very strange. The designers get points for ingenuity if not aesthetics. It's dank and moist. Day 2: Carbon River camp to Mystic. Another day of misty weather obscured most views of the mountain, but we did catch a couple of shots of Carbon glacier with the mountain in the background. There's a big slide in the first mile to Dick's Creek, with NPS workers doing some intermittent blasting to clear the last of the boulders. Rubbly and steep in this area. Steep all the way to Moraine Park. Quite buggy in the park, and worse up to the little saddle. Great flower show in the park right now - mostly lupine but many others as well. Down good trail to Mystic lake, then down further to the camp. Some bugs at Mystic camp. Day 3: Daytrip from Mystic to Skyscraper Pass. Another misty and eventually rainy day obscured any big views, but the pass is beautiful nonetheless. The Wonderland trail from Mystic to the Pass is in terrific condition, well-graded and snow-free the whole way. Very few bugs on this section of the trail. Day 4: Mystic back to Cataract Valley Camp. Our first clear and warm day. We got an early start - a good thing, as the descent from Moraine Park and especially from Dick's Creek Camp is very exposed and hot. The climb from Carbon River camp up to Cataract Valley Camp is humid, buggy, and a bit overgrown, not to mention steep - best not to do this late on a hot day. Cataract Camp was by far the prettiest camp we stayed at - and we had it all to ourselves, sort of odd for a beautiful August day. Just a few bugs here. Day 5: Cataract Valley through Seattle Park to Spray Park, down to Mowich Lake. A warm day, very buggy especially in the flower gardens; and lots of flies on the descent. Cross some long snowfields just near the 6400 foot saddle, but these are very safe/passable. The flowers on either side here are very spectacular, just tons of lupine and paintbrush, a few avalanche lilies leftover, many more coming on. Lots of photographers out and about. The mountain was big and brilliant in the east. The trail down from the park to the turnoff to Spray Falls is quite rutted and very steep with rivers of water on the trail in spots. From Spray Falls to Mowich Lake the trail is in much better condition. All in all a beautiful classic backpack, not too hard, a great day trip to Skyscraper Pass. Bugs not at all bad considering the late meltout and all the reports from last week. If I did this again I'd stay at Ipsut or Dick's Creek the first night; Carbon River camp is not for me. Granite Creek camp looked pretty. Cataract Valley is a very nice spot and since it's not on the Wonderland trail, you may have it all to yourself. There were some scattered thimbleberries and wild raspberries on the trail, but most of them are not ripe and of course the huckleberries are still green.

In all honesty, this is usually a multi night hike for the average joe. I did it in one day, my new record for longest single day hike at 31 miles. In any case, I started at the carbon river entrance and went up the road to ipsut camp. The trees are massive along this stretch. A few wash outs have a nice trail working around them. 5 miles of flat easy hiking goes by quickly. I continued up the carbon river, crossing at two miles to the east side of it, as the last mile before the suspension bridge is washed out on the west side of the river. Found a few huckleberry bushes with ripe berries that I filled up on at this stretch. After crossing the suspension bridge, i was soon working my way up the cataract valley. In about a mile and a half, I reached cataract valley camp, which is in good shape. There were several campers there I chatted with while refilling my water. In 10 minutes, I was already on my way up into seattle park. The flowers were beginning to bloom in large quantities there and was blown away by the beauty of this park. Eventually, after a couple snow patches and one sizeable snow field (no route finding issues) I made to the gap between seattle and spray parks. This is where I finally began seeing people hiking. Working my way down into the park (which is beyond awesome right now with the flowers) I passed many people, enjoying the day. It was about as busy as Mt. Si, so get there early! A short but steep series of switchbacks (from spray park) brings you down to the junction for spray falls. Please do make sure to take this short (.2 miles roundtrip) to the falls as you will be missing out severely on one amazing falls! From spray falls to mowich lake, the trail is easy, going up and down back and forth gradually. Do make sure to check out eagles roost view point for an outstanding view of mt. Rainier. Eventually, you arrive back at the lake, where I again refilled my water while enjoying the majesty of this lake. Soon, I was back on the trail on my way up to ipsut pass. The trail isn't too steep and I made great time to the pass. The view from the pass is remarkable! You can see all the way down the valley and from side to side with towering cliffs. Don't forget to look down too. Why you ask? Well, if you're not going any further, you can be thankful. If you are continuing, prepare your knees for a beating! The trail is very steep, rocky and over grown in places. Add to that the cliffs directly above you to the left that loom menacingly overhead and it is a challenging trail, if not physically, then mentally. Working your way down, the trail shallows out a bit, and you're back in the cool forest. I did encounter a couple of logs down on thr trail, but I reported them, so hopefully they'll be taken care of. Back at ipsut camp, I was making great time back to the entrance so I decided to go the 4 miles round trip to green lake. Too bad you can't camp there. Its a nice lake. The trail to green lake is beautiful too, with a few very old and large trees that fell above the trail with plants growing on them that you walk under neath. Pretty cool. Anyways, finished the 31 miles in just 12 hours 30 minutes with a 27 pound pack on. I think I'm ready for the wonderland trail in a couple of weeks!

Had to meet friends at the Mowich TH who are doing the Wonderland Trail yesterday. Decided to visit Spray Park since hubby has never been. I was there on Sunday to see the gorgeous avalanche lily fields, but in only 2 days, I see they are starting to wane. But other wildflowers are peaking - red paintbrush, lousewort, lupine and heather to name just a very few. The mosquitos are out, but some bug juice seemed to do the trick for us.

Our destination was Spray Park. With the forecast for sunny and warm, I knew there would be plenty of people. So I opted for the Knapsack Pass trail, to approach Spray Park from the north. From its beginning at the ranger station, the unmaintained trail was in good condition, with no blowdowns and just a few muddy spots. We saw only one other person, who warned us about the insects we would encounter as we neared the pass. Sure enough, mosquitoes swarmed us on the final steep ascent. At Knapsack Pass (6100'), an intermittent breeze helped. We descended the rocky trail to where it soon disappeared beneath snow. With the warm temps, it was easy to negotiate the steep side slope of snow. We dropped 300' below the pass, then regained it climbing a ridge, before finding the trail again and following it down into lower Spray Park. After a lunch break overlooking the spectacular Mist Park, we walked over to the main trail, where we joined the throng of other hikers. The snow patches along and over the trail were melting rapidly. Insects were mild to moderate along the main trail, hardly noticeable in the forested lower elevations. Spray Falls was magnificent, as always.