Rainier National Park, Day 1

We stayed overnight close to Mount St. Helens, but got up the next day and drove straight to Rainier National Park, arriving around lunchtime. The plan was to spend this first day exploring Longmire, the historic village at the base of Rainier, before making our way towards the top of the mountain, where we were staying at Paradise Inn:

We started with lunch on the porch of the National Park Inn, with a lovely view out onto the mountain

Our first glimpse of the mountain from the porch

After lunch, we made our way to the trailhead for Carter Falls, our first real hike of the trip:

The landscape, particularly at the start, was different from any other hike we had been on

Fog kept rolling in and one minute you could see the landscape and then next you couldn't

As we walked, the trail played peek-a-boo with the stream

This ended up being one of the steepest hikes of the whole trip

Giant trees everywhere

First view of the falls

After Carter Falls, we continued to wind our way up to Paradise, stopping at Christine Falls, which were just off the road:

We had heard at the Longmore Ranger Station that Paradise was still snowy, but it was still surprising to see SO much snow:

After a quick stop at the Paradise Visitor's Center to plan new hikes for the next day (all of our originally planned hikes were still too snow-covered to safely make out the trail), we checked into our room. We were all just chilling and reading, when I suddenly looked up and noticed a mountain out the window! Turned out we had a mountain view but had not realized it because it was completely fogged over when we first got to the room:

As we stayed in the room, it got clearer and clearer and you could see more of the mountain:

After a while the beautiful views tempted us outside onto the Inn's lawn to get a closer look and take some pictures (without the mesh screen of the window between us and the mountain):

Turns out, Abby loves selfies (this was not new to us, but she usually takes selfies with Benji or her friend Elisabeth) and we were included in the fun:

Had to take a picture of the giant snow pile outside the hotel as we walked back to the room

As it got close to sunset, we decided to head back out and find a nice spot. The views as we drove down the mountain were stunning:

Pretty sure this is Pinnacle, the trail to which was closed

We ended up at Reflection Lake and were treated to clear reflections

After the sun had set, we made out way back to Paradise Inn, but stopped at this overlook which had been fogged in earlier:

Some fog rolling in again

We'll come back to this spot later and see an amazing change of view