Matt's Mount Rainier National Park Drive (Sept 2006)

So, this is going to be a big epic email for me.. seeing as how 99% of my email subjects generally have "blah" in the title somewhere and the body of the email consists of between 2 and 3 sentences.  In fact, this email is so epic that I might actually spell check it (doubtful).

So the other day.. I believe it was a Tuesday.  I finally decided to go see mount rainier.  mount rainier is that big ass mountain around +80 miles away from UW, yet I can see it as if it's just a few feet in front of me on a clear day.  However since my random impulses don't always coincide with clear beautiful days, I couldn't see Mount Rainier from seattle (nor could I see it when I was ON the mountain).

So the drive down to mount rainier was confusing.  Seattle's freeway/highway system is so backwards that they really do want you to get lost.  I found my way alright, that isn't to say that I hadn't called Lia to save my ass when the freeway google told me to go on decided to dead end and turn into a freeway I never heard of (although I was headed in the right direction).  I made it to the park, paid my entrance fee, and had a lot of fun driving the twisty roads in my BMW.

So lets get to the bulk of this epic post and show some of the pictures I've taken on the way...

this pic was taken when i was lost and called lia when i first got on interstate 7.  This is part of some river that is dammed and feeds into Alder Lake.

All of the following pictures were taken from a camp ground that is along adler lake right off of highway 7.

cool camp guy was fishing in the lake.

nice turquoise colored water.. very strange imo.

I saw this when driving and was shocked... this is still alder lake.

Claustrophobic people should not drive here.

This is the beginning of the pictures taken in mount rainier national park.  This was in the first camping area within the park.  About 6 small camp sites right next to this river which is called Paradise river.

More from that campground, notice the fog covering the trees (you'll see that a lot)

More fog

Cool waterfall going under the main road.

I totally forgot the name of this.. but it used to be a glacier a very very long time ago.  Now what is left of the glacier is paradise river.

perfect setting for a scary movie..

fog layer is pretty distinct.

I believe this is called Nisqually falls.

Since there was construction farther up the mountain, I stopped at this observatory thingy (not that there was anything to observe, the fog layer was so bad).  Anyway in the parking lot I saw a couple camp rangers start to crowd around my car right after I parked.  I got out and wondered what was going on and I overheard one of them say "fox."  So I looked over my shoulder and about 5 feet away is this dude.  Apparently they're all over the place and are chilling in the camp sites and visitor areas because people feed them.

no food there...

i thought this was a cool picture, but what do i know about pictures.

The last few pictures are all taken from reflection lakes.  Normally when viewed, you can see the reflection of mount rainier in the water... but since i picked a really great day to go to mount rainier, all you see is fog.

notice the fog just above the water level.