June 1
Breakfast was in the hotel, and Sarah went down early as she usually does while Dave and I were still sleeping (or attempting to). The baseball tournament contingent had invaded the breakfast room and one obnoxious coach was doing his best to equal the kids’ level of misbehavior, according to her. Luckily they were pretty much all gone by the time Dave and I went down for the normal buffet breakfast of eggs, sausages, and sweet pastries.
Well anyway, we had no problem leaving Chehalis behind, probably caught it at a bad time. Drove South on Interstate 5 for a few exits and then turned East on route 12, and it didn’t take long before the beauty started. It was a lovely, cloudless day and the temperature was just right. We drove through miles and miles of farmland and feed stores, gradually going higher and higher, still on the long tail end of the parabola, but with hills and then mountains ahead of us. We passed a few big lakes and soon the ridges of the Cascade foothills were enveloping us, and we were climbing from valley to valley.
After 90 minutes or so we cruised through the town of Packwood, and it was just right, exactly halfway between mountain getaway for wealthier people, farm/feed/tavern/grocery source for the locals, and distant suburb of the bigger cities. You could telecommute from there and it was close enough to Seattle to commute in once or twice a week. And it was beautiful! A meme of ours all through the vacation was that we’d be moving out there soon and we were just looking for where. I think I’d really enjoy living in Washington, though of course I’m bound to New England.
Soon after Packwood, as the road started to get vertical and signs announced the snowpack level in upcoming passes and there were pullovers to put on your tire chains, we exited North on route 123 and soon were entering Mt. Rainier NP. I’d been watching their website, hoping that the Southeast entrance would not open late this year, and luckily it was opened on May 23. However, the Ohanapecosh Campground at that entrance was closed for reconstruction, as was the nearby VC, and I had no idea if we could access the trailhead for the Silver Falls Trail, which sounded just right for us but started in the campground.
So we were very disappointed when the main entrance to the campground and VC was closed at the road … they even prohibited hikers from walking in. But we kept on North for about another half mile and there was a small parking lot on the left with a few cars in it, so we pulled in. We checked with a guy who was just heading down the social trail there and he confirmed that yes, this would quickly lead to the Hot Springs Trail, and we could follow that to the Silver Falls Trail.
We were psyched, loaded up with all our hiking stuff, and headed off. The way to the campground on the Hot Springs Trail was blocked by a signboard but it said that we could go the other way to Silver Falls, we just couldn’t then loop back through the campground to return, we’d have to retrace our steps. It made me wonder what on earth they were doing in that campground that made them so anxious to not let anyone near it?
So we went North on the trail and it was wonderful. Tall trees paraded all around us, mostly Douglas fir, western hemlock, and red cedar. We soon were in a hot springs area, and signs warned us not to leave the trail. We didn’t see any steam, as we had with other geothermal springs, but at one point a small brook ran across the trail into a pool, with telltale hot water/mineral colors. We put our hands in the brook, and it was very hot!
The Hot Springs Trail intersected with the Silver Falls Trail, running along up a steep hill from the Ohanapecosh River, across a few other streams running steeply downhill to the river, and eventually past the intersection with the Laughingwater Creek Trail, which leads up to the Pacific Crest Trail. There were just a few other people on the trail, and in all it was a couple of beautiful miles to the Falls. It looked and smelled like a dense evergreen forest, and Douglas squirrels and birds kept popping out at us between the tall trees.
And when we got to the Falls, wow, what a sight! It was a multi-level, twisting cascade between amazing trees and rocks. A cove that must be a back-eddy of the Falls when the level is higher contained some huge logs and added to the message that the old forces of water, gravity, upheaval, and photosynthesis were at play here and we could stand back and watch, if we were lucky and respectful.
Turned around eventually and it was another couple of miles back to the car. Once again, our first exposure to a National Park had been lovely and mellow, and got us primed for the wonders that were to come. We drove up to the Stevens Canyon Entrance and would have loved to go up to the Grove Of the Patriarchs Trail, but it was closed because of a bridge being washed out in 2021. Again, please fund the Parks better!
We’d seen on the map that the road would be going through some severe switching back for the next 20 miles or so to the Paradise area, and we sure were going steeply uphill, first along the valley of the Ohanapecosh, then crossing a ridge and switching back up along the Cowlitz River. We were headed for a short hike at Box Canyon, and it’s a stop not to be missed.
Pulled over in the small parking lot there and crossed the road to the trailhead, which took us steeply uphill, past a lovely meadow with small wildflowers of all colors of the rainbow. The Wonderland Trail that circles all through the Park branched off to the right, but we turned left, down to a bridge over the Cowlitz, and a steep, steep, amazingly narrow canyon. It’s 180 feet down to the raging river from the bridge, and you’re high enough to get vertigo. I had to step back after a few minutes!
Back to the parking lot after a half-mile loop, then we drove a little farther to the Box Canyon picnic area, where we found a secluded picnic table and had an excellent PB&J lunch. Next stop after that was going to be the Snow Lake Trail or the High Lakes Trail at the Reflection Lakes. But there was a problem…
I haven’t mentioned the awesome presence of Mt. Rainier, a monadnock (debatably, technically it's a stratovolcano so it's not, though it is highly topographically distinct) and so one of the biggest single things you’ll ever see. We could see it from the Seattle airport, and as we cruised up route 12 that morning we’d seen it to our left, looming behind and then dominating the lower hills and ridges around it. We were driving up the steep Stevens Canyon Road after lunch and all at once around a corner, there it was up close, filling the whole windshield with a vision of craggy rock, snow, and off-white glaciers. We were lucky that from this angle we were able to see the whole thing without clouds masking any of it. We would have stopped to take pictures, but we didn’t know that we’d rarely get a cloud-free sight of it again.
And just about at that point, we started noticing snow along the sides of the road. Stevens Canyon had been open since May 23, as I say. But we realized as we climbed higher and higher that this was only because they’d plowed the road. By the time we got up to the Lakes Trail, there was no chance that we could hike it, it still had 3-5 feet of heavy snow on it. Sure, the snow was melting fast, but it would be at least another few weeks before the upper trails would be navigable by hikers like us.
So we shrugged and continued up to the Reflection Lakes, where there was even more snow! The ice was not even out on the lake, we could just see small areas where it had melted. We parked, along with a huge number of people who were taking selfies and having snowball fights. We hiked up to either end of the lengthy parking lot to try to find the trailheads we were looking for, but they weren’t even visible, the snow was so deep. No chance of getting in a hike there.
Oh well, back in the car and we continued up and up to the Henry M. Jackson VC in the Paradise area of the Park. The different areas are basically river valleys formed by glaciers up on the mountain. We’d been in the valleys formed by the rivers running downhill from the Ohanapecosh and Cowlitz glaciers that morning, and now were in Paradise Park, with the Paradise Glacier hanging above us.
The parking lot was mobbed, but we lucked into a good space and toured the VC. We talked to a volunteer, who really enjoyed talking to us and wanted to keep on talking all day apparently. But somewhere in there he gave me some good advice about where to hike. Well, some advice at least. I told him we wanted a short, snow-free hike for that afternoon and then would be spending the night in Ashford and looking for a longer (but snow-free) hike for tomorrow. It wasn’t the most satisfactory conversation, but I came away with some ideas about what we should do.
Then we checked out the mobbed store, but didn’t get anything, none of the hats were up to my standard, unfortunately. They ran a snowshoe rental and had a bin overflowing with wet, returned ones. We three huddled in the lee of one of their exhibits, looked at the map the volunteer had marked up, and decided to go for the Carter Falls Trail that afternoon. Outside, the parking lot was as busy as ever; many people had brought or rented skis/snowboards and were walking up the trails from the VC and then skiing down, threatening to wipe out other tourists who were flailing in the snow. To the South we had a wonderful view of the Tatoosh Range of mountains.
From the VC we drove steeply downhill towards the Cougar Rock Campground, now in the valley formed by the Nisqually Glacier. We pulled over for a short stop to see Narada Falls, which are spectacular, but we didn’t hike down to the viewpoint. The volunteer had given us a good tip and directed us to park in the picnic area at Cougar Rock, which was almost deserted and pretty close to the trailhead. We got our packs out, but we hadn’t realized what a long and steep hike it would be to Carter Falls! We loved it anyway.
From the campground area you clamber downhill into the Nisqualley River valley, which every once in a while gets filled with water from the glacier, but most of the year is a huge gulley of rocks. There was kind of a path between the rocks over to the lower side of the valley, and the trail wound that way in the hot sun with a cool breeze coming down from the mountain. Over on the far side of the river valley is the rushing, tumultuous river itself, when it doesn’t spill its banks, and a log bridge over it. We realized we’d have to walk over that log bridge.
It was a little hairy, especially because it was a logjam (no pun intended) in both directions, with hikers hesitating and getting up their courage to cross the bridge. When it was our turn we didn’t chicken out, but you might want not to look down at the water, which is hard to do when you’re trying to keep your feet in the center of the bridge and stretch out to hold onto the flimsy guardrail. On the other side we clambered up out of the gulley formed by the river and soon were on a beautiful trail uphill into the woods.
The trail crossed over a ridge to parallel the Paradise River, which joins the Nisqually just below the bridge. It started off kind of level, then got steeper and steeper and steeper. There were a number of people on the trail, but also an assortment of beautiful trees and great views of the river valley and the end of the Tatoosh Range. As I say, we hadn’t realized how long of a hike it would be, or the elevation change. It was almost as much as the “longer” hike we’d left for the next day! But we kept on and had a great time.
I can’t overemphasize the magnitude of the forest infrastructure these trees had made through thousands of years. Every inch of space, even in mature forests with little understory vegetation, was being used. There wasn’t just thick humus, there were multiple layers of nurse trees, nurse stumps, and thick, tangled roots that supported the giant trees. On the Carter Falls hike the riverbank had been eroded away in places and we got to see awesome cross-sections of the forest floor, trees growing on the last generation, piled on top of generations before that, and roots extending down through it all to layers beneath our feet. It was like the catacombs of some ancient city.
Finally got to the Carter Falls after hearing them for a long time. Not as spectacular as the other ones we’d seen, especially since you really can’t get a good view of them with all the trees. Took a break, then turned around and headed back downhill, much easier this way. This was all part of the Wonderland Trail, which as I say, circumnavigates the Park. If we had kept following it uphill we would have soon been in the snow.
Several groups of people heading up the trail stopped us on the way down and desperately wanted to know how far they had to go. I told one group that they were halfway there, but didn’t tell them how much uphill it was going to be. Got down to the bridge and it was somehow even more hairy crossing back over it. But we were exhilarated that we’d been on such an adventurous and challenging hike. Finally made it out of the river valley and had to climb up the road just a short way to get back to the car, and a pump where we refilled all our water bottles.
Ok, we were toast and ready to head to the rooms we’d reserved in Ashford. We drove down and down and down some more, in the Nisqually River valley. In retrospect I have to give Muddy better grades, she sure wasn’t prepped for this when they rolled her out in the Seattle airport, ready for city traffic. Out through the Nisqualley Entrance and the dodgy/expensive hotels and resorts started up within a few yards of it.
We’d lucked into a pied-Ã -terre in the Copper Creek Inn, just a couple of miles outside the Park. They’ve got lots of cabins, rooms in the lodge, etc. But what worked for us and what I jumped on when I looked at their place back in December was Frenchie’s Suite, upstairs from their restaurant. The inn has existed as a family enterprise for generations, through several families. Frenchie was an eccentric uncle a few generations ago who lived upstairs, apparently, and the three-room suite he stayed in (with a bathroom down the hall) was just our kind of funky, was a fine price, enabled us to return to the Park with no traffic, and was right over the restaurant.
Might be noisy though, and what about security?? We pulled into the Copper Creek Inn’s employee’s driveway as directed and said, no that couldn’t be it, then turned around and around and went way up the driveway and eventually it all clicked. This was the place we’d reserved and was the place we wanted, very different from the Holiday Inn in Chehalis. We grabbed our travel-worn bags and empty bottles, walked down the gritty pathway onto the timbered porch, punched the code we’d been given, and found exactly what we were looking for. Frenchie’s Suite had a great table in the living room, two small bedrooms, a bathroom down the hall, a fridge and microwave, and an eclectic selection of DVDs we didn’t need, fortunately.
Here's a picture of Frenchie, cook at the Inn for 50 years, with a nephew.
Oh boy, what a relief! BUT … we were worried about getting seats in the restaurant on a Sunday night and so hurried downstairs as soon as we got settled. It was mobbed. We were told at first that we’d have to put our name in, wait 30-45 minutes, and then jump to it when they called us. But we talked to the manager and told him that we were in Frenchie’s Suite, could they just text us or something when it was our turn? He was great and put us down for a reservation in a half hour and told us to just come back then, we’d be fine.
Which we did, and we had a great dinner at the Copper Creek Inn. They had a fine beer selection (cans only), and a local, dry but not-too-dry cider that Sarah loved (Mill Haus Cider from Eatonville WA). We were pretty exhausted by then and did not finish our dinners, but our server Luke was perfectly timed to our imperfect rhythms, and we all really enjoyed the amateur art and artifacts they had on display. In all, we really liked this place on a mellow June 1st Sunday.
Ok, back upstairs, a game of Azul, and soon to bed!
Sarah took pictures of these wildflowers during that day:
- Star-flowered Lily-of-the-Valley
- Deer's-Foot/Vanilla Leaf
- Bride's Bonnet
- Western Starflower
- Salal
- Western Bunchberry
- Cascade Oregon-Grape/Dull Oregon-Grape
- Sitka Valerian
- Western Sword Fern
- Stream Violet
- Pacific Trillium
- Salmonberry
- Cliff Beardtongue
- Saskatoon
- Subalpine Monkeyflower
- Russethair Saxifrage
- Cascade Calicoflower
- Pipsissewa
- Pacific Coralroot
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