With over 6' of fresh snow at Mt. Rainer, it was time to get out and do some shoeing around the park. Our long awaited visit with Mike and Val was timed perfectly with a huge dumping of snow in our local mountains. Being from sunny San Diego, Mike and Val were quite impressed with our record breaking snow at Mt. Rainier. We picked them up at the airport on Thursday morning and headed up to the National Park Inn at Longmire for 4 days of exploring. We had fantastic snow conditions, although we missed a clear view of the peak all weekend. The shear amount of snow made up for it as we tromped around Rampart Ridge, Paradise and Reflection lakes.
Val, Mike, Margaret and Andy
Our first day hike probably saw the deepest snow drifts. At times up to our thighs.
This is the most we saw of the peak, from up on Rampart Ridge.
Lunch up on the ridge
Relaxing down on the lodge deck.
The next day we headed up to Paradise just as the road opened for the first time in a week. Pretty low visibility, but we had a good time anyway.
The trees were just plastered.
Our last day we took off to Reflection lakes. It had snowed a couple more inches that night and we were greeted with some amazing snow sculptures.
It was a great weekend with great friends. Can't wait till the next trip.
