Glacier Vista Snowshoe, Reflection and Louise Lakes Snowshoe — Sunday, Apr. 25, 2010

Mount Rainier Area > SW - Longmire/Paradise

Hoping this might be my last snowshoe of the season, but you NEVER know with our crazy weather. I drug Annie up kicking and screaming (yeah right) to one of my favorite places.. Paradise.. um, well, until Sunrise opens anyway. The skies started out a little grey and the mountain was hiding a bit at first. But throughout the day it kept getting better and better. The goal was panorama point today but I forget that Annie doesn't use poles so when she saw how steep it was we changed to Glacier Vista and it was just as nice. Took a ton of photos of the conga line going up to higher. It was still early so we were going to get some more miles in. But when we arrived at the parking lot, I couldn't get out! I was blocked in! Cars were 3 deep on all sides and I parked on an end spot. I have NEVER encountered this in all my years of coming up here. It was NUTS! I parked next to a Black FJ and they got back to their car only to find to be blocked in too and managed to get out by no small feat of a serious MAZE. I knew I could not do the same in my car it's just too big and the cars were too close. The guy actually offered to do it for me, I said only if you really WANT to, but I could wait for cars to come back.. but he was nice and slowly maneuvered through the MAZE one more time. I didn't get their names but am truly grateful from one FJ owner to another, you guys ROCKED! From then we moved on to a quick pit stop at Narada falls we noticed the Steven's Canyon road was plowed. We couldn't decide where to go back up to Barn Flats or Reflection Lake or just head home, so we flipped a coin! Reflection Lake won.. we walked the pavement to the lake and built snowmen and ate and laid in the sun, maybe too much. Totally sunburned.. I forgot about to put sunscreen on my neck..not good! Great day in the mountains...