Spray Park — Saturday, Jul. 30, 2016

Mount Rainier Area > NW - Carbon River/Mowich

This hike has amazing views! The hike itself is also very pleasant. The first 2 miles has you walking in a beautiful forest until you get to the junction with Spray Falls. I highly recommend taking the short side trip to Spray Falls as it is an incredible waterfall! From the Spray Falls junction, the switchbacks start and go for a about a mile until you get to the beautiful meadows of Spray Park. There were quite a few wildflowers blooming! I definitely recommend walking for about another mile through a few more beautiful meadows until you reach a ridge with a beautiful valley below. There's a small well defined trail to the left that lets you walk right up to the ridge, and it is an amazing view of the valley below you and Mt Rainier to your right. The road there was definitely rough with some sections of many potholes close together, but definitely passable if you drive carefully. My Honda Civic got through just fine. I got to the parking lot at around 0930 on a Saturday and had to park on the road about a half mile from the trailhead. It's a busy trailhead! There were definitely a lot of bugs flying around and I brought bug spray but I didn't feel the need to wear any bug spray and got bitten by a mosquito once, but that's more of a personal preference. I saw lots of families with kids of all ages, but no pets allowed. Overall one of my favorite hikes with amazing views for not too much hard work.