Parking lot was beyond full. I had to leave the car at least a half mile down the road. Mosquitoes were annoying until I put on some repellant. A quick and easy 3 miles (doh 3.5 miles for me) up to Spray Park. Lots of hikers. The meadows were ok. Lupine is not so great this year. Magenta paintbrush and bitsort still going strong. Some patches of avalanche lilly. I headed up Ptarmigan Ridge towards Echo & Observation rocks but the mountain was slowly disappearing in clouds. I found a decent spot to get some photographs before it was too late. Had about 20 minutes and then the mountain was just gone. Indeed the cloud cover was so heavy that it swallowed the ridge I was on as well and I was wondering if I could get back down to the trail. No problem though. Oh well, another cloudy weekend but still there's nothing I'd rather be doing.

Busy Mt. Rainier trail on a sunny Saturday. Lots of beautiful views and flowers - and mosquitoes! No other problems to report. The trail is, of course, well-maintained.

Hike #2 on my Hike-A-Thon schedule was supposed to be 10+ miles at Point Defiance, but I scaled back my plans after a tough hike the day before. I'll be camping with the family at Mowich Lake and doing a hike to Spray Park/Seattle Park next month, so I thought I'd get a sneak peek at the conditions at the campground and the trail. From Mowich Lake, the Spray Park trail has a number of gentle ups and downs to Spray Falls. All the trails are in great shape -- no mud or water or brush problems to speak of. The bugs are out in force, though! No mosquitoes, but plenty of bees, gnats and blackflies. I think I escorted a family of blackflies from the falls back to the campground as they flew in a lazy orbit around their new sweaty friend! The long gravel road to Mowich Lake is in good shape until you cross into the park, where the washboards take over. Parking along the road was packed when I arrived in the afternoon. Mowich Lake, Spray Park and Tolmie Peak are not the ideal destinations if you hate crowds! (They don't really bother me -- gives me a chance to practice different ways of saying hello, hi, hey, how's it goin'?, great day for hiking, get some good pictures?, is the snack bar still open?, etc.) Due to time constraints I only made it to the falls, but it was a good quick hike. I'm looking forward to doing it again next month.

This is one of my favorite hikes. The trailhead is at Mowich lake at the northwest corner of Mt Rainier NP. The dirt road to the trailhead is in very good condition albiet dusty if your behind someone. The trail starts out in the woods for the first 2.5 miles. A 100ft side path to Eagle Cliff View affords a great view of Mt Rainier. The meadows are very green and are accented with Avalance Lillies, Paintbrush and several others. Just a few small snowfields near the trail highpoint. Head off on an easy crosscountry meander over moraine mixed with interesting alpine vegetation. Try really hard to only walk on the rocks and avoid crushing these delicate plants. A loop can be made by returning in the open valley dotted with small lakes just to the south of the main trail. A .1 mi side trail to Spray Fall is very worthwhile and is best illumiated in the afternoon. There is a bit of a scramble to get an unobstructed view of the falls. Flowers are at their prime but mosquitoes are also present in large numbers. Not too bad until you stop for more than 1 minute. The ranger told me that they were actually much worse 2 wks ago so maybe they'll thin out in the near future.

My best friend and I did Spray Park trail this morning left Mowich lake at 7:15 am had to be done early. We got up to Spray Park around 9:30 and it was beautiful. Much better than the last time I was there about 3 weeks ago with lots of snow. The flowers were in bloom and bugs were out. But it was a sight to see, we were the first on the trail this morning. I had a baby shower to go to at 1:00 so we were in a rush and on the way down from the meadows; my friend Annie saw a bear! She yelled at me from the lead, there is a bear hurry up and keep going...I said ""what, where!?"" and wanted to stop and take a photo. I didn't believe her at first and questioned if she was serious. we have been hiking and snowshoeing together for a while now and never seen a bear, she she said ""YES"", she was serious and shaking and that this bear was very close to the trail 20-30 yards and scared her. I wanted a picture and almost went back, but thought better of it. We got back to the car at 11:30 and I barley made it to the baby shower in time. All and all a good day no rain and saw bits of the mountain. 1 marmot, 1 bear, 1 waterfall, mountain, and heard lots of bugs and birds. We are doing Tomie Peak tomorrow. No need for gatters only a tiny bit of snow in the meadows.