2025-08-05: Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington

Milestones

• 12th U.S. State Camped (SHOW ON MAP)
•  9th time camping in a National Park (SEE THE 8th)
• Part of my 4th Annual “Bike-A-Palooza” (SEE the Whole Trip)
• 1st time getting sick while camping.

Oh No! … Will I have to Cut My Trip Short?

I won’t bury the lead….. 24hrs after leaving my campsite in Washington, I got a sore throat, which led to a typical summer cold. Isn’t being outdoors supposed to be a healthy environment? The bummer was, each day driving was wearing me out. Eventually, I had to stop and get a hotel room. I didn’t mind burning up a day. The problem was… I had reservations at future campsites that I had to get to. I needed to drive about 350 miles each day, just to keep up with the schedule. It’s my fault; I didn’t build in any buffer. So, any day lost meant I could possibly miss out on the remainder of my reservations, and drive straight home. Thankfully, I had 2-days camping in the same location, so I ended up using that to recover. Lesson learned… expect bad things are going to happen, so plan to have some “down” days.

The Views

My campground was only 60 miles from Tacoma, Washington. This was along the drive up State Route 410.

The following picture is looking east from Chinook Pass (across the Cascade Mountains). Because of the high elevation, Chinook Pass is usually closed in November due to very heavy snow and significant avalanche danger. It usually opens in mid-May and is not uncommon to have a snow depth at the summit of up to 15 feet.

This was descending from the pass, headed down to my campground.

This was 2 miles from my campground

I loved my campsite. How beautiful.

After setting up my tent, I went exploring around the campground.

The White River

As I was wandering around the campground, I kept seeing small creeks.

Eventually, I found where they were all going: the White River. The source of the White River is the Emmons Glacier on the northeast side of Mount Rainier. The river flows from ice caves at the toe of the glacier. Its upper reach is contained within Mount Rainier National Park. The river is paralleled by much of its upper course by State Route 410, called the Mather Memorial Parkway. After several miles the river exits Mount Rainier National Park and enters Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

This was my view of the White River…