Forest road drive, parking, and restrooms
The road was fine compared to some of the other forest roads I have been on, recent trip reports accurately describe it as a washboard road. There are a couple of pull outs that have a view of the mountain - today was not a clear day, but I remember the last time we stopped by on our way back to watch the sun set from one of these. If you are leaving late, and can't stay for the sunset, you can stop on your way back.
We found parking close to the trailhead, since this was a Thursday morning. Did not use the restroom, but there was a line. A lot of people were camping here.
Trailhead to Spray Falls
You lose some elevation at the beginning of the trail through the forest, and you will pass through Eagle Cliff Viewpoint. Mt. Rainier was all covered with clouds when we got to the viewpoint, but I think this will be a good point to view the mountain where Echo rock and Observation Rock are not blocking your view, as they do from Spray Park.
Definitely stop at Spray Falls, it is quite beautiful, and it is quite easy to cross the stream to get further up to get a better picture of the falls
Spray Falls to Spray Park
The trail gets a little steeper and you go through some switchbacks before you enter Spray Park. Getting to Spray park was a little disappointing today, since there was no view of the mountain, and the wildflowers I had seen in the July reports were all gone. There still were a few, that Outside Nancy names in their report.
However, walking further along the Park, the clouds thinned a little bit for peek-a-boo views of Tahoma, and the meadows got more beautiful. I loved walking through the park all the way till the elevation of 6,335 feet, after which the trail descents, and a right fork takes you towards Flett Glacier and Echo and Observation Rocks.
Spray Park to Flett Glacier
We took this fork to get to the foot of Flett Glacier, intending to go up Observation Rock. We met a hiker on his way back who told us they had hiked up to the foot of Observation Rock, but did not go up, they thought the snow this year there was sketchy. They had been up there multiple times in previous years though.
The trail to the campsites below Flett Glacier is mostly quite easy to follow, but we did go off trail for a while and ran into a Ptarmigan family. We were on our way up to Ptarmigan Ridge after all, if we had continued on :)
The trail was quite beautiful with outstanding views, especially from the foot of the Glacier. There is a nice campsite here with a semi-circular wall of rock slabs, and a view of a lake with the greenish color that you get from glacial silt. Alltrails.com does show a trail going here as well, and we did see a hiker near the shore.
We did not go up to Observation Rock though - we were quite slow to get here, we are slow as it is, and had stopped too frequently, it was too late, and quite cloudy.
The clouds did part for a moment though giving us a beautiful view of Tahoma.
Spray Park to Knapsack Pass
On the way back we decided to follow the custom map I had drawn out on alltrails and take the route via Knapsack Pass, so we get different view, and get back faster, since this unofficial trail is shorter.
Taking the fork off Spray Park was fun - we got different views, a little steep going up towards Mount Pleasant, and then coming down. It was a difficult trail to follow over the rocks here - but we did see cairns and were able to follow along, although it was slow - we realized just going back the official trail we took up would have been quicker even if the distance was longer.
As we got closer to Knapsack pass, the rocks got a little more tough to go over, and there were unstable ones too, but it was quite fine, and we crossed a couple snowfields as well, which was also quite do-able.
However, when we go to the part just below Knapsack pass, we ran into loose scree, and that was not fun for us. I was focused a lot on trip reports that talked about going up Observation Rock, but I should have read more about Knapsack pass - there are a few reports in the past that mention it being hard for those report authors. The more recent ones are from skilled hikers though, and I'm sure for a lot of you this part will not be very challenging at all. Search for "loose scree" if you are not sure what to expect.
I looked up Knapsack pass, and there was a middle part that would have been impossible to scramble up. AllTrails told me the left part was where the "trail" was. But that was loose scree that made be nervous. I looked up the right side, and saw some potential footholds - sandy areas, bigger rocks, and trees. I thought this was safer for us, so up the right side we went, on all fours, and got up to the pass, and felt relief on seeing the rest of the trail looking like a regular dirt trail going down till Mowich Lake, which was now in sight.
I now also saw the trail going down from the pass that disappeared into loose scree - there was no way I was going to be able to go down there - going up is safer for me.
Knapsack Pass to Mowich Lake
There were some steep parts here, and a beautiful stream with wildflowers we crossed a couple of times.
We did not see anyone on the Knapsack Pass trail all the way from Spray Park to Mowich Lake, so if you are fine with some scrambling and route finding, you could take this route back.
Bugs/Mosquitoes
No bugs all day (I didn't put on any spray at the start of the trail), until we got to the Knapsack Pass trail, where they started attacking us, and I had to put on some spray, finally.
Comments
Maddy on Spray Park, Knapsack Pass
The sand is likely pumice that was pulverized by a past glacier.
Posted by:
Maddy on Aug 21, 2021 08:36 AM
siddi on Spray Park, Knapsack Pass
I see, thanks - yes, that makes sense. I was thinking sand from an ancient sea/river bed might have been uplifted on to the surface, but such sand would already have become sedimentary rocks
Posted by:
siddi on Aug 21, 2021 09:39 AM
Maddy on Spray Park, Knapsack Pass
Amazingly, Mount Rainier is only 500,000 to 1 million years old. Relatively recent kid on the block compared to the age of the Cascade range. A lot of the uplift for the current Cascade range occurred somewhere between 4 and 7 million years ago. That older uplift is where you will see sandstone raised up into mountain elevations. Mount Rainier however is much newer than that uplift and all of the rocks on Mount Rainier are igneous as far as I know.
Posted by:
Maddy on Aug 21, 2021 01:01 PM
siddi on Spray Park, Knapsack Pass
Ah, OK, hiking this part of the park to just below Echo Rock definitely got me thinking a lot about the geography of Mt. Rainier - I'm going to read up on it
Posted by:
siddi on Aug 21, 2021 04:39 PM