The Back Porch View: On the Move…. Mt Rainier to Mt Adams

Monday, July 14, 2014

On the Move…. Mt Rainier to Mt Adams

One last drive up to Mt Rainier for early morning light…. The most amazing discovery happened at the Sunrise Vista. In an area surrounded by nothing but mountains and forests we had 4G service with 3 bars. Up in the forests you can get pretty excited about internet service. Even in the little gas stops….hard to call them towns there is rarely more than 1X service.

We did what all good tourists do and made a little snow woman and invited her home for breakfast.

I have always thought of Mt Rainier and Mt Adams as singular mountains. But the truth is far different. They are part of the Cascade Mountain Range. As I look to the south I was impressed with how rugged the mountains appear.

There are no lights on the mountains (except a lone mountain top beacon) and this is not a populated area. It is simply you, alone I the wilderness. It is such a reminder of how insignificant humans can be in nature.

On the way back from camp we did a little more exploring before heading back to camp for breakfast.

Remnants of previous ice flows cropped out along the road.

The interplay between fire and ice on Mt Rainier formed unusual rock formations. Andesite lava, the most common on Mt Rainier, flowed down the mountain. It was unable to melt the ice field completely and formed rivers of lava that when cooled quickly, formed rock columns that cracked in the hexagon shape that you see.

There are many hairpin turns as you go up and down mountains. The road is wide enough for large vehicles, you just pray that the race car drivers…..stay on their side of the road. Most of the largest vehicles and motor homes leave their huge homes at camping resorts farther down the mountain.

Often at these hair pin turns if you look closely at the corner, there are waterfalls that are continuing to carve a path down the mountain with melting snow and ice.

After three days at White River we moved down the road a piece.

The campground was starting to get busy with lots of folks moving in for the weekend so we wanted to find a more remote place to ride out the weekend. I had heard of a campground that was located between White River and Paradise Visitor Center look out that would put us close to checking out the beauty on Mt Rainier from the West Side of the Mountain.

So we loaded up and headed down the road. We were headed to La Wis Wis Campground which is located along a river. It was a very busy campground especially with the weekend coming up so we kept going and ended up at the North Fork Campground which is about 12 miles south of Randall on Forest Road 23.

It is a quiet campground and even over the weekend there has not been a night that it’s been full. There is an amazing amount of space between the camps so there is plenty of piece and quiet.

It is a National forest service campground so it is priced at $18 or $9 for seniors.

We have a path down to the river and our own private little beach. I think we will be staying here as a home base and exploring from here. A bridge lead to the group camping spots.