I’m slowly catching up on old posts - it’s still going to be a while. For our summer vacation this year, we did a road trip starting (sort of) on Galiano, then heading south through Washington and Oregon. We covered a lot of ground, and did a lot of fun things, so there are likely to be a few posts to cover it all.

With the Monday being the holiday long weekend, we were able to book a ferry Saturday morning, coming back Sunday to head out to Galiano for a couple of days. As I was in full training mode for Fondo, I needed to ride both days, including a big ride on the Sunday. With all the riding, it didn’t leave us a lot of time to do much but relax. Which was OK - vacation and all.

We got there a bit late on Saturday, as the ferry was a little bit later than usual, and was also running 45 minutes late. On arrival we went to the Saturday Market, and then I rode up to the property to do my easy ride for the weekend. We had a leisurely afternoon, had some great Thai food for dinner and a relaxing evening.

My ride on Sunday was 77 km - and lots of hills to climb.

Sunday I was up early for my long ride. Just shy of 4 hours of hill climbing later, I was pretty much done. To try and recover a bit, we drove down to Pebble Beach and walked down to the water to go for a swim. While the water temperature was pretty good, the waves were the biggest we had ever seen. While it was fun, we were getting bashed around pretty good. We did have the place to ourselves for the most part.

The waves at Pebble Beach were larger than normal.

After getting back from the beach we got cleaned up, and I had a short nap in the tent. Before long we needed to get packed up and head for home. As much of our camping gear was on the island, we needed to make sure we were all sorted for the longer trip to come.

Monday we had a leisurely start to the day, as we didn’t have a huge drive ahead of us. The plan for the whole week was to do a few things:

Camping and hiking at Mount Rainier National Park
Mumford and Sons concert at the Gorge
Whitecaps vs. Timbers in Portland
I had a bunch of training rides to get in

As a result of the stops, we ended up with a nice little circle route through Washington and Oregon. This is what the whole trip ended up looking like over the course of the week:

We got the car packed up mid-morning on Monday and worked our way south past Seattle and down towards Mount Rainier. Traffic was really bad - we had thought we had planned it well, but it didn’t work out - and the drive took a lot longer than we expected. We made a couple of the usual stops along the way - Costco, REI - which didn’t help. So it ended up being a little later than planned when we pulled into the Cougar Rock campground, part way up the slopes of Mount Rainier.

We got set-up and organized in camp and made dinner. It was a pretty relaxing evening as we waited for it to get dark. The last time we had been on Mount Rainier, we had stayed at the old lodge at the top, and I had managed to get some good Milky Way shots. So i thought I’d try again this time around. The sky was still a bit too bright, even at midnight, but some of the pics turned out OK.

As it was getting quite late, we had to call it a night. Justine managed to see a few shooting stars, so that was a bonus.

The next morning I needed to go for a ride to continue my training. I had decided I wanted to try and climb to the top (well the road top…) of Mount Rainier, and it made sense to get it done early to avoid the traffic. I ended up leaving around 7:00, which wasn’t bad and did the 16 km of climbing up to Paradise!

The route up and back from Cougar Rock to Paradise and back. A little over 30 km in total. A complete grind up, but so much fun coming back down!

A pic of Christine Falls from the Christine Falls Bridge on the ride up.

The ride up wasn’t as bad as I expected - or maybe I was in better shape than I thought? But the roads are in great shape, there are lots of switchbacks, but that made the slope of the ride pretty gradual. It got steepest at the top, but I was almost there by that point.

I made a couple of stops along the way to snap some pics, as you get some views from a bike that you would never get from a car.

The traffic on the way up was surprising light - I was afraid that I was going to have to deal with a lot of traffic, but there were only ~30 vehicles in total that went by me. And all of them were very respectful and made it easy, so that was nice.

Once I got to the top, I stopped for a quick snack and some water, and went into the lodge to have a look around and take a few photos. It’s such a cool spot, and a shame that we were not able to get a room. Still the campground was really nice.

The ride back down was a lot of fun. It was fast, and the cars were holding me up more than the other way around. The switchbacks were particularly fun - so well engineered! The ride down took about 15 minutes I think.

After recovering a little bit and having some lunch, Justine and I planned to go on a short hike. Right across from the campground there was a trail that lead up to a set of waterfalls, and then continued on deeper into the park as you desired. We started off in the campground, and at one of the nearby campsites noted a very cool, old dead tree.

I love all the woodpecker holes on this old tree.

Even right in the campground, there are some big trees!

The hike started across the road, and then across one of the many rivers that flow off of Mount Rainier.

Justine crossing the river on the log bridge.

A pretty typical view of the trail - wide, well-maintained and soft to walk on.

The hike we had planned on doing was the relatively easy hike up to Carter and Madcap Falls - two smallish waterfalls along a very easy, soft trail that climbed gradually uphill. After my ride that morning, I wasn’t looking to put a lot of miles on. Plus we had a bigger hike planned for the next day.

The trail rose gradually, and eventually made it to the first stop at Carter Falls. While a decent little waterfall, it’s set pretty far back, and there isn’t really a great view of it to be seen. More of a glimpse through the trees.

It was pretty busy on the trails, with lots of families out. We continued up the trail a little bit to Madcap, which provided a much nicer spot to take some pictures.

It was also clear why there were so many families out, as there was easy access to a nice spot to swim in the pools above the waterfalls.

As the area around the two sets of falls were quite busy, we decided to continue up the trail, and continue the hike up to the much bigger Narada Falls. This stretch of the hike was steeper, and the trail a bit more demanding. It wound its way through the old growth forest, past many streams and creeks as we headed up to the base of Narada Falls.

Narada Falls is said to be the most popular waterfall in the park, because the Mount Rainier Highway crosses the falls between its two tiers. The waterfall drops 188 feet in two tiers of 168 feet and 20 feet. The upper tier is a horsetail that falls in several strands down a nearly sheer cliff, into a canyon that is perpendicular to it. The lower tier is a much smaller plunge.

The horsetail of Narada Falls from down below.

After having a snack at a viewpoint overlooking Narada Falls, we made our way back downhill to the start of the trail, and then back out to the campground.

A different view of the log bridge across the Nisqually River.

We made our way back to camp and had a bit of a relaxing time. As we got close to our campsite, a chipmunk was having a great time collecting food to store for the winter off some of the local plants.

For dinner, we decided to head up to the top of the mountain to have dinner at the lodge. We’d eaten there before, and the lure of their huckleberry ice cream was enough to draw us back. Before heading up we had to drop down to Longmire to grab some ice for the cooler and to explore a bit more. We made a short stop at the Twin Firs Loop trail, a short loop that takes you past some amazing old growth, monster trees.

One of the many huge trees along this short, easy trail.

We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, but we did see a few Stellar Jays over the few days in the park.

As it was getting to dinner time, we headed up the mountain to Paradise - my second time there that day! As we got to the top, we still had some time while the restaurant was still open, and the light on the mountains to the southwest was really nice.

The light on the craggy peaks was beautiful.

The first of many wildflower shots to come…

Finally it was time to go in for dinner. It wasn’t too busy, and we were seated right away. Dinner was good, if expensive, but dessert was fantastic! We had a leisurely dinner towards the end of the day, and they were closing up as we left. We hung out in the lodge for a bit and played cards while waiting for it to get dark out. I wanted to try a few more night shots at higher elevation, to see if it got better. I’m not sure it did.

Our first full day in the park was a busy one! Much more to come!