September, 2025
This morning I jumped in the big white truck and left Cougar Rock Campground, heading up the road to Paradise.
Here’s a Google Earth image of the road. The summit of Mt. Rainier is not in the image, it’s to the north, above the image below. The solid YELLOW DOT in the lower left is where I’m camped at Cougar Rock. Paradise is over on the right, circled in yellow. You can see that Paradise is very close to the snow line, and to the tree line. It’s right up there on the side of this mountain, with lots of trails that head up into/onto the mountain (a few paved, most are gravel, and after not very far along those trails, they end, and then you better know where you are going, with proper clothing and equipment!).
You can see how much the road winds with twists and turns with serious switchbacks. Except for a few spots along that road where there is a straight-down drop-off on one side of the road, and no barriers of any kind to stop you from going over (yikes), it’s a really pretty drive!
The drive usually takes about 25 minutes. Here’s a video of the last 4 minutes of the drive to Paradise. Notice how small the trees have become compared to the trees in last week’s blog post. Paradise really is so close to the tree line. I’ve heard some folks say how young these trees are, that there must have been a fire here, etc. No, these trees are old; they are small partly because of the variety of evergreen tree that they are, partly because of how cold the winters are. Think about spending a winter right next to a glacier! Brrrr.
Turn your sound on and listen to the big white truck shift gears as she cruises around the corners.
After I arrived at Paradise, I found a parking spot for the big white truck, then jumped out of the truck and walked all over the place to enjoy the glorious views. It was a wonderful day, blue sky, sunshine, no wind. There were lots of us tourists out and about. I heard all manner of languages from around the world, and I talked with lots of those folks.
And, oh my, the mountain.
In these photos, I’m about 4.7 miles from the summit of Mt. Rainier as the crow flies. Click on photos to enlarge them.
Of course, it’s not allowed to walk off the path, even to take a photo of a flower, but sometimes you just can’t help yourself. 🙂 The woman in the photo above walked backwards after taking a few photos, stepping in the footprints that she had left as she walked in. Who can blame her? Not me.
Here’s a photo of some flowers, a photo taken from the path. There were so many flowers!
Then I wandered over to the Lodge … actually called Paradise Inn. Some time during the past few years (decades?), another wing was built that doubled the size. That “new” wing was purposefully built to look almost as old as the original section.
The photo below shows one of the hallways in the old section. It felt so welcoming, and warm, and comfortable, and cozy. And it was as quiet as could be.
At the end of one of the hallways (I walked up and down lots of them), I found a room with the door open, employees had obviously just been in there to clean, but when I came upon it no one was around. I peeked in. And then couldn’t stop myself from going over to the window to get this photo below. That’s the view out the window of that room. It doesn’t look at Mt. Rainier, but gosh what view to the mountains to the south and the west. Sign me up!
Back down inside the Lodge, on the main floor, is a huge room with chairs and couches galore where you can sit and read or chat or just rest a bit. There’s also a small museum there, a deli, a gift shop, the offices, etc. I loved the lighting … huge cylinders made of paper and painted wonderfully.
This one below was my favorite.
There are two real wood-burning fireplaces in that large room, one at each end of the room. Notice the trees on the grate, and the ones behind the grate.
Eventually, I decided to head back to my campsite, but not without one last walk around the parking lot and then out a bit onto a couple of the trails there. I don’t know of anything in the world as magnificent, as old, as beautiful as this mountain, where we can drive this close to it and then walk right up next to it. It’s a volcano … it has blown it’s top (last time it did that was about 1,000 years ago) and they say it is overdue for another eruption and that it is dangerous. But to me, she’s a friend.
