I’ve been to the other two national parks in Washington (Olympic and North Cascades) , but had yet to make it to Mount Rainier and it was definitely on my bucket list. When my friend Kayle brought up how we were overdue for a hiking trip, I suggested Mount Rainier! I was hoping to go during wildflower season, but it worked better schedule wise to go in the fall and I thought that catching some fall colors there would be really cool!

We stayed in Ashford which is very close to the paradise section of the park, so we started our first day there. We were planning to do sunrise at Reflection Lakes, but once we got there the view was completely obscured by fog. We went to our next location and hiked the Skyline Trail, but it was also completely obscured in fog and you couldn’t even see the mountain. We were very disappointed, but decided to head over to the Carbon Mowich section of the park earlier than expected for our sunset hike to Tolmie Peak. 

On our hike up to the top, the clouds started to come in and we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to see anything at the top, but once we reached the top it slowly cleared! 🙂 We finally got a view of the mountain and a spectacular sunset that lasted forever on the horizon. Since we stayed at the top until sunset, we had to hike down in the dark using our headlamps, which was a first for me. 

The next day we went to the Sunrise section of the park and had much better visibility. We started our day off with sunrise at Tipsoo Lake, which was a gorgeous shade of pink. After sunrise at the lake, we went back to the Paradise section to see views that we missed due to the fog and this time it was crystal clear! 

We took the afternoon off from hiking and spent some time in the woods in the airstream camper we were staying in. I got to relax with some hot tubbing and drinking local brews.

We intended to hike Mount Fremont for sunset, but I accidentally brought us to the wrong trail. It ended up being a blessing in disguise as the trail was stunning, and we found a spot along it for sunset that we thought was just as good, if not better than the hike we originally planned for. 

We were planning to hike back down in the dark using our headlamps, but while we were watching sunset, I heard what I am very confident was a bear. So we booked it the other way down to the parking lot and had to hitch a ride from some lovely ladies back to our car haha! 

Mount Rainier definitely exceeded our expectations! The mountain is massive and so gorgeous from every angle and the fall colors in the park were stunning with tons of reds and oranges. Besides a little usual Kayle/Stacy bad luck of fog, getting locked out of our camper, and a close encounter with a bear, the trip was an absolute success!