This is a beautiful Day Hike. We enjoyed very much the lakes and the lookout has jaw dropping views. There are a few meters covered with snow, easy to walk through. The bugs were vicious, we did not bring mosquito repellent and we recommend you do.

The website states that this is a great hike for kids, but I will warn you, only if your kids have been hiking for a while. There were a few families that turned back half way to Eunice Lake, because they could not make it in the heat. With that said, it is worth every droplet of sweat, and every bug bite (and those bugs seem to be immune to every bug spray and lotion we all had) you get on the way up. Though you may be tempted to stop at Eunice Lake, I would definitely make the effort to go to the top, as it is worth every minute of your time. Once you get to the lookout, there is a trail on the back end of the ranger station that takes you on the cliffs for some great photo ops and peace and quiet from all the people that did make it to the top. Come early though, my group was at the trail head at 9am, and parking was already scarce. Do not park on the spaces and areas that say "no parking", I saw a tow truck in action today.

Easily one of the best hikes as far as views of Mt. Rainier are concerned. Post a lazy morning on a cloudy "Blue Angels" week Saturday in Seattle, we started driving towards Mowich lake at about 2:45 pm. Were at the Tolmie Peak lookout (Eunice lake) trailhead at 4:30 pm. Start to the hike wasn't pretty: Fair bit of snow in the first few meters, foggy weather, already getting dark .... not very encouraging signs. We were thinking of abandoning the hike, just then met a family who informed us that the trail up till Eunice lake was actually snow free (and so did we confirm). Thus, do not get discouraged by the early snow. As I said, it was already 4:45 pm ... we were running out of time. We climbed to Eunice Lake quite fast (I'm a tennis shoe hiker, not used to fast and hence exhaustive hikes). The 1000 feet or so elevation gain seemed much more to me for that reason. Eunice lake was all frozen and it was very very foggy. The trail going further up to Tolmie peak lookout was covered in snow. Time was 5:30 pm. Again, we wondered: Should we head back down? Surely there was no point climbing up further to Tolmie peak lookout, there was no way the mountain was going to come out! Well, we couldn't have been more wrong. Good sense prevailed. We decided to take our chance and climbed up all the way to Tolmie peak lookout. Although there was snow along this part of the trail, navigation wasn't all that difficult courtesy of footmarks left by earlier hikers. Thank you :) Reached Tolmie peak lookout at about 6 pm and the views of Rainier that we got in the next couple of hours are undescribable. There was a ranger up there at the lookout. He told us of a theory that post 5 pm, as temperatures fall, clouds descend to lower levels in the valley, opening up the mountain against clear blue sky. And boy, that theory was spot on. The views we got up there made me believe that this was one of the most beautiful hikes I'd ever done. As I said, no words or for that matter even pictures, can do justice to the view we got. But attached are a few little pics, taken with my point and shoot in an attempt to capture whatever I could of the scenes up there. The place was so serene (no other hikers around) we just did not feel like leaving. I had read before that this was an "evening" or a "sunset" hike. Therefore, dearly wanted to wait until sunset. Problem was that by 8:30 (sunset time), it would have got really dark on the way back and we had no torch lights. We delayed leaving for as long as we could, finally started descending at 8:20 pm. We almost ran down back to Mowich Lake courtesy of the fear of getting stranded on the trail in the dark (it was already dark half way down for us. And we were lucky to make it back to the car without getting lost. Therefore, I would not encourage doing something like this unless you have some sort of a flashlight). But all in all, a hike completely worth the little effort. Can't imagine how beautiful it would get once Eunice lake un-freezes .... which should happen in about 2 weeks time. Happy hiking.

After finding all our overnight wishes to be snow-filled and not all that accessible yet, we opted to do a day hike to Tolmie Peak Lookout. The drive was filled with wet-ish windshields from the low ceiling and we were hoping we would be above the clouds which proved to be mostly true. We arrived at the trailhead with quite a few cars present and snow all over the place. The trail can be found pretty easily and off we went. Mowich lake was quite pretty with wisps of fog here and there, snow on the trail here and there, a little muddy in places but nothing that was nasty. Eunice Lake was totally snowed in with relatively rare patches of earth--mainly in the forest around the lake but not much dirt showing near the lake. The lake itself still has quite a lot of ice on it which seemed so odd to see given it is August 6th! Route finding to Tolmie Peak Lookout wasn't too tough to do, which then created a nice boot path for those following in our footsteps. Once off the lakeshore, there were small patches of snow going up to the Lookout. At the top, we were rewarded for our efforts with glimpses of Mt. Rainier as the fog came and went from the lake below. We patiently waited and hoped The Mountain would come out for us, but alas, only the tippy top could we see. However, it was sunny, we ate lunch at the Lookout and enjoyed the sort-of view without any bugs at all...that was a nice surprise! A great day in the mountains, and we came back to even more cars in the parking lot wondering where all those people were from those cars as we didn't pass by all that many people either coming up or going down the trail. Fun fun day.....