Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Day 22 Summer 2010 Park to Park Road Trip

Today we are going to visit another National Park. Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.

We left our hotel in Federal Way WA and headed into the park.

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We can see Mount Rainier ahead of us, between the trees.

1069 Mount Rainier National Park WA

We pulled off at Sunrise Point to take this panoramic photo.

1078 Sunrise Point MRNP WA Stitch

Beyond Sunrise Point, we started getting better views of Mount Rainier.

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We stopped at the Sunrise Visitor Center.

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There are many different and beautiful plants in this high alpine meadow.

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This is Tipsoo Lake, a small lake in MRNP.

1152 Tipsoo Lake MRNP WA

Just past Tipsoo Lake is Falls Creek and also another beautiful view of Mount Rainier.

1165 Falls Creek MRNP WA Stitch1169 Mount Rainier National Park WA

There are several tunnels right through the mountain side.

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Some more wild flowers.

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We pulled over at Reflection Lake where you can see a reflection of Mount Rainier in the water. There is a remediation program underway to remove the grass and reeds that have grown in the lake and blocked the reflection, but you can still see part of the mountain in the water.

1206 Reflection Lake MRNP WA1208 Reflection Lake MRNP WA

Another roadside pull off at Narada Falls.

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We didn’t see any wildlife in the park, but shortly after leaving the park we saw this black tailed deer crossing the highway in front of us. Very lucky that it did not get hit while crossing a 4 lane highway.

1252 Black Tail Deer Between MRNP & Kelso WA

So there you have it, we enjoyed our visit to Mount Rainier National Park, the views and vistas were spectacular. We got our National Park Passport book stamped, bought some postcards and a hat pin for our map.

To see all of the photos that we took today, you can click on this link to my FLICKR site.

We will be leaving the State of Washington tomorrow morning and entering into Oregon.

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