Grand Park from Lake Eleanor
This is a somewhat difficult trail to get to, as you have to drive down about 9 miles of dirt road, much of which is potholed enough to limit your speed to 10 or 15 miles per hour. Maybe if you have an SUV you can go faster, but in the little Mazda sports car we had we needed to take it slowly. The road starts well north of Mount Rainier National Park and drives south to just about the park's border, where there is a small carpark.
I'll now give you the advice we wished we had before we began our July hike: cover yourselves with some good bug repellent, as the mosquitoes in mid-July (start of the bug season after a week of warm days) were some of the worst we have ever seen.
The trail climbs steadily past Lake Eleanor, a pretty little lake with a camp spot next to it, and then continues to climb steadily through the forest to Grand Park. It took about an hour to get to Grand Park, which is about 1100 feet above the trailhead.
Grand Park is fabulous - from Lake Eleanor you enter the south end of a 1.5-mile-long meadow with a spectacular view of Mount Rainier at the north end. It is a pleasant, level walk along the length of the meadow. We evidently were too soon for the wildflower season, though, as we saw only limited numbers of flowers spread throughout the meadow. The main feature is Mount Rainier, of course, but as a photographer I would loved to have had an abundance of wildflowers to put in the foreground of the photos of the mountain.
You can continue past the meadow and over to Sunrise visitor center if you want to hike the ~10 miles there. We hiked to the trail intersection at the south end of the meadow, and then turned around to hike back to the car.
The purpose of the trip is to visit Grand Park, as the hike through the forests to get there is nothing all that special. This is the shortest route to Grand Park, and the trip is certainly worth the effort. Just make sure to bring some good bug repellent!
Burroughs Mountain from Sunrise
This is our favorite hike at Mount Rainier. It is a 3-mile hike to second Burroughs Mountain, which has fabulous views of Mount Rainier that are up-close and personal. Third Burroughs Mountain evidently has even better views, but requires quite a bit more effort. We thus stop at the second. These photos are from two different hikes several years apart.
The trail starts at Sunrise Visitor center and climbs up the ridge behind the visitor center, with nice views to the north. Marmots were sighted a number of times along the entire length of the trail, with one posing nicely for a portrait.
The trail follows the ridge for a bit, passing by Frozen Lake before you take a left and start climbing up the rock slope of Burroughs mountain. You end up about 1300 feet above Sunrise Visitor center.
The view from the mountain is among the best in the park, with Mount Rainier looming close enough that you almost feel you can reach out and touch it, yet the landscape is so vast that you know it is still miles away.
The return trip can be done by reversing the hike, but it is far more interesting to hike the Shadow Lake route back to Sunrise. This trail is a right turn about a half mile back from second Burroughs Mountain. The first part of this trail crosses a scree slope with a couple thousand foot drop on your right and stunning views of Emmons Glacier and Glacier Basin on your right. The steep slope lends a bit of daring to the trip, as a mis-step in the wrong place could result in a long slide down the rock slope. It is not at all frightening, though, as the trail is plenty wide. The only tense part we had in July was crossing a small snow field where you felt like a slip would end up in a long slide on snow a few hundred feet down the slope.
There are myriad opportunities to photograph Mount Rainier bracketed by gnarly, dead trees as well as many pine trees. We saw mountain goats in the far distance, but according to a volunteer we met they can sometimes be seen much closer to the trail.
Shadow lake is a picturesque little lake in a nice valley.
We did not hike to the far side to see the view of the mountain with its reflection in the lake, but I suspect it would be a good view. Wildflowers were there in abundance, as well as along the trail back to Sunrise, providing some nice foreground for shots of the mountain. There is a final mile or so of uphill hiking to get to drinks and food at the snack bar and store at Sunrise.
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