Sheep Lake to Sourdough Gap — Thursday, Jul. 29, 2021

This was the first time doing the hike and we were happily surprised by the incredible experience. Parked at the parking lot along 410 and started the hike around 1PM, returning around 5:30PM. Hiked a little over 1.5 miles to Sheep Lake, where we were able to take a quick dip in the lake and saw tons of wildflowers and meadows along the way. Continued from there onto Sourdough Gap for another 1.5 mile or so, which was a much steeper portion of the trail, but definitely manageable and also filled with wildflowers. After reaching the gap, we hiked maybe another 15 minutes past the gap to see both Mount Rainier and Crystal Lake just behind the bend of Sourdough Gap (it was so worth it--the views were incredible). Overall, the hike was a little over 6 miles round trip, but we were constantly entertained throughout the journey. Plenty of bugs flying around, but they were much more preoccupied with the blooming wildflowers and generally left us alone. Trail was dusty from lack of rain in recent weeks, but was still in fairly good condition.