Cougar Rock, more Paradise

September, 2025

This next day … up again I went to Paradise, this time to walk around another part of the grounds up there, one where I had never walked before. There is a parking lot on the left, before you get to that main, huge parking lot in the video in last week’s blog post. This smaller parking lot also has hiking trails leading from it, and I think I had noticed a building or two near it as I’d driven by in the past, though those buildings aren’t open to the public. But I wasn’t real sure of any of that, so off I went, to explore and learn. 🙂

I parked in that small parking lot, got out of my big white truck, walked about 40 feet away so I could see around a large stand of evergreen trees, and there it was … Mt. Rainier. Spectacular.

After spending a few moments drinking in that mountain, I noticed the building on the right (above), the building with the dark gray roof.

I walked around to see more of the building. And then I noticed the light grey building behind it, in the distance, that looked like a two-story building, maybe an administration building of some sort.

And then I got to the “entrance” of that large building with the dark gray roof. You can drive through it! There were no signs indicating the use of these two buildings, no welcoming sign to the public, but no “do not enter” signs either. Hmmm.

And then I noticed the tiny little dark brown sign affixed to the concrete on the left side of that entrance.

 

Ah ha! That’s what these buildings are. And then a national park employee walked by me and I asked her about the place. That light grey building is a two-story apartment building for park staff, especially those who live here year-round, since Paradise is open all year.

I didn’t want to intrude but I did walk around that “entrance” building a bit more. Found this view (below) of a tank. Another employee walked by me, he said this tank is either water or sewer holding, he wasn’t sure which. He also told me that the trees are so thick behind the building that no one has a view of Mt. Rainier from inside the building, but the good thing about that is that the trees protect the building from most of the wind up here.

That would be an interesting life … no grocery stores, no hardware stores, no restaurants except the deli in the Lodge, no movie theaters, no gas stations, no book stores, no clothing stores, etc. They do have internet all year long. And both that man, and the woman before that I chatted with, say pretty much everyone who lives here had better love to hike and be outdoors because that’s just about the only thing to do up here on their off hours.

And yet, if you do love to do that, what a gorgeous place to live …. and get paid to do that!

On the other hand, winters can be ferocious. The two trees below had their tops crack off in one severe winter storm a few years ago. The top of the taller tree landed on the lower tree and cracked its top off.

Here’s a closeup (below) of a part of that lower tree. It got mutilated! But it compensated as best it could and is still a healthy, growing tree.

 

As cold and rough as winters are up here, you can’t look anywhere and not see plants of all sizes, huge trees, shrubs of all kinds, and small under-story plants everywhere that are the signature of western forests here in the USA. East coast forests have some understory, but not all these small plants, but here in the west, these small plants are everywhere.

I walked around this area for quite awhile, up a couple of the trails for half a mile or so each. Then I came back to the parking lot to head home, back to my campsite, for lunch. As I was walking back to the big white truck, I started noticing license plates. Lots of license plants from all over the USA. So I took photos. Just one walk through this parking lot (not the huge one up by the main “Paradise” area, but just in this one small parking lot), here are the license plates I found …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The license plate below was on a large camping-type van from Zurich, Switzerland. I suspect they shipped their van across the Atlantic to the USA. And then they drove across the USA seeing everything on the way (or across Canada), and then they might spend this coming winter driving from California back to the east coast, then head home to Switzerland. Wow, what a great trip.

I didn’t include any photos of vehicles from the states of Washington or Oregon or Idaho or from British Columbia in Canada, because there were so many of them, no big deal. 🙂 But adding those four to the list, that means that just in a 20 minute period, on one day midweek up here, in the smaller parking lot, there were vehicles here from 21 states, one province, and one European country. Mt. Rainier (and Paradise) is a very popular tourist destination!

And yet, there were other people here too.

Just before I got back to my truck, I was walking around a corner of the pavement and came across this little person below … a Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel. “Chip, chip, chip! My friend Douglas Squirrel at your other campground said you handed out really good leaves for him to eat. Do you have some for me? Chip, chip, chip!”

What could I do? I crawled into the shrubbery, rummaged around in there, got filthy dirty, but came out with some tasty little leaves that I thought she might like.

I tossed them out onto the pavement, making sure no cars were coming. She sniffed one of the leaves, then chowed down!

Yum, yum, yum.

I placed the rest of the leaves closer to the edge of the pavement, and in among the plants along the pavement, so she wouldn’t be endangered by cars driving by. And then I finally got back to my truck, and drove back to my campsite, to get MY lunch. 🙂 Happy camper.