We continue to have beautiful weather in the Pacific Northwest, and we’ve done our best to take advantage of it by trying to hike on Mt. Rainier once a week. After our hike on the southeast flank of the mountain, we decided to hike the northeast flank. Worried that there would be too many people hiking the main trail, we took another trail we had never done before and were pleasantly surprised — though we still saw more people than we expected.
The lack of recent rain was beginning to show as the trail was quite dusty and flowers next to the trail were looking parched.
This emerald lake hundreds of feet below looked mighty inviting,
but we settled for a lunch stop at the much closer Shadow Lake.
Not sure where all the Canada Jays were, but the only wildlife we saw on the trail was this bold, little chipmunk.
Flowers galore, but none more striking than this Magenta Paintbrush,
Which isn’t to say that I ignored all the other flowers
even some that didn’t quite look like flowers.
