Getting to Sunrise after sunrise

It wouldn’t be a Seattle summer if we didn’t make the trek out to lovely Mt Rainier! We left pretty early and drove 2 hours to check out the north side of the volcano, Sunrise visitors center.

Armed with plenty of candy, treats and PBJ, we took the trail up to Mt Fremont peak where you can check out an old fire lookout shelter perched on top. I can only imagine how intense that place would have been in a summer storm. We were equally concerned about not seeing a restroom for the caretaker either!

I forgot to mention, on our hike up to the peak we noticed a big black bear scampering by a couple hundred yards above us towards the top of the mountain ridge. Pretty exciting! As you can imagine Nora had lots of questions about black bears and wanted to triple check that they aren’t as aggressive as grizzly bears. After that she made me practice how quickly I could whip out our bear spray can.

The girls batted away aggressive squirrels during our mountain top picnic (hours after recounting a podcast talking about the seriousness of rabies disease among rodents). Thankfully no bites!

We hiked down the mountain and swung by a little alpine lake and camp area and took a quick break while checking out the local wildflowers and butterflys. Sadly, no mountain blueberries this time!

All in, I think it was around 5 or 6 miles round trip. I can’t wait to come back next year, maybe to camp!

{edited to add in photos!}

We got to the parking lot around 9am. We thought it would be colder than it was.

The start of the trail is pretty wide and uphill.

Eventually it levels off to a wide meadow next to "Frozen Lake" with pretty views of Rainier in the distance.

Family shot

A black bear sighting!! How exciting!

Don't worry, it was actually pretty far away. Do you see it in this photo?

The second leg of the hike was a bit more treacherous. We are headed to Mt Fremont Lookout Tower. Do you see the little black speck at the end of the trail, towards the left of the mtn there?

Not a good hike for little kids. Look how steep that is.

Made it!

The ledge in front of the tower

View from the Tower

Panaroma of the Tower

We sat on the rock and had lunch.

On the way back, we stopped by Shadow Lake

and rested for a bir

Skipping amongst the wildflowers

A giant among trees!

Don't be fooled by the smiles! There was a meltdown right before this.

LOTS of butterflies everywhere

Dinner on the way home. Evie's choice!

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