August, 2018
Not so many words in this blog post. 🙂 Mostly pretty pictures.
These first photos here are of three different campsites I found in another campground just down the hill from Cougar Rock Campground where my trailer (Towhee the Trailer) was parked for this week. This other campground is Big Creek Campground on Big Bear Creek in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, just down the road a piece.
I liked that there were lots of trees and underbrush between campsites and that the campground was mostly empty even during a warm, late summer week before school was back in session.
Mostly I liked the huge, old trees and the creek and the birds. I suspect I’ll be camping here next year.
After this trip down the mountain (mostly to check email and with a side trip to this other campground), I then drove back up onto Mount Rainier, heading back to my campsite. It took quite a while to get back since I kept noticing things that distracted me and made me stop, park the truck, and get out and look, or get out and hike a trail.
On the way back to the campsite, I noticed the two mountains in the photos below. Talk about craggy peaks! People talk about how surprisingly difficult Mount Rainier is to climb … take a look at these two rascals!
Further along on my drive back to the campground, I passed a sign to Narada Creek Falls. A quick stop there rewarded me with some very pretty photos of the very pretty creek. Maybe on my next camping trip to the Mount Rainier area I’ll hike down to the bottom of 188-foot Narada Falls. The photo and video below were taken at the top of the falls, before the water makes that stunning drop that becomes Narada Falls.
Back at the Cougar Rock Campground, I walked each of the loops of campsites and noted my favorite campsites for the future.
But the trees … oh the trees! I was overwhelmed by the huge, old trees in the campground. The trees in the photo below were at least four feet in diameter, many of them were larger than that. I don’t know if they were “old growth” but they sure were old and so strong and stately and handsome. They seemed so sure of themselves.
Besides those amazing trees, I also noticed tiny plants(?) growing on tree branches. Are these epiphytes? What are these?
And finally, I walked back to my campsite and my cozy, little white trailer in the woods. Again, I hadn’t looked up from that spot on the road before, but I looked up now. And again, I found Mount Rainier looking over my shoulder. The other day, I had to walk 30 feet or so away from the trailer in the other direction, today I was only about 15 feet away. I guess if I’m going camping anywhere near a mountain, I better start looking up!
Tomorrow … one last drive up to Paradise. I’ll share photos of details of the mountain … and glaciers where I could spot them, and other interesting things too.