Mt. Rainier

As this last weekend was likely to be the last truly beautiful summer weekend of the year, I decided to spend Saturday hiking on Mt. Rainier with a good friend.  For those of you who aren't from the Pacific Northwest and don't already know, Mt. Rainier is one of the tallest, most beautiful mountains in the world.  This is the mountain that you see from Seattle on a clear day, the one that takes up a huge vista hundreds of miles away.  I really cannot describe how majestic she is.  The natives of the area called her Tahoma and she features as a sacred place in many legends.  On of my favorite legends is the story of Komo Kulshan and his two wives.  For anyone who venerates the earth there is no more sacred way to spend a day.

The hike we did was about 5 miles long and had about 1000ft of elevation.  Apart from a few steepish/icy bits it was a fairly easy hike.

We started by hiking the Sourdough Ridge Trail towards Frozen Lake.

From there we went up and around Burroughs.

Where we found snow.

From there we found ourselves on top of the most astonishing alpine meadow with a jaw dropping vista.

Apart from a minor low blood sugar incident, it was a spectacular day.