Spray Park, Flett Glacier & Ptarmigan Ridge (Mount Rainier) — Saturday, Jul. 10, 2021

Went to Mowich Lake on Friday, opening day of Mowich Lake Road, with the intention of skiing the Flett and Russel glaciers via Spray Park

The road is filled in with new gravel to fill the old potholes, so the drive wasn’t too bumpy.

Grabbed a walk-up campsite at 10am, started hiking at 11am.  Maybe 10 other cars in the lot.

Welcome to late season conditions- Spray Park Trail is snow free.  Any snow patches or mud from melting snow that we crossed was negligible.  Wildflowers are blooming everywhere.  

We got off the Spray Park trail and made our way to the glacier, but snow leading to the Flett was patchy at best. We didn’t even try traveling on the Russel and ditched skis at the base of Echo and Observation Rock (top of Flett). Went by foot up to Ptarmigan Ridge at 8500 feet (this is an off-trail rock scramble and we wore helmets).  We were able to stay on rock the whole ascent and plunge step surrounding snow for our descent. I think this illustrates the lack of snow in this NW region of the park.  

Flett skiing was fun but thereafter, the ski down was silly because no snow, lots of on and off.  Actually just wish we hiked the whole thing, lol

Ran into lots of backpackers, and skiers (all dispersed camping), on the way out.  We got to our Mowich Lake tent site at 8:30pm, and all campsites were full, including Wonderland spots. Parking lot totally full.  

14 miles and 4700 ft gain

Also, the ranger said that the Carbon River bridge is in.