Eat Well; Travel Often: Day 20

Day 20: 6/6/15 (Mount Rainier)

45 miles

Who went on a 5 ½ mile hike today? We did!

This morning we woke up around 8am with plans to do some hiking. On the way to the bathroom to brush our teeth, Rico found some leftover firewood at empty campsites so he went around collecting it all. Once we were on the road, we made a quick pit stop at the Reflection Lakes again to see if it would be better during the day time – in fact, it was worse. So we turned back and headed to Paradise to start hiking. We ended up picking the Skyline loop which is the longest, most strenuous option, but we made it! We hiked up rock, through snow, and across streams. There is nothing more refreshing than hiking in 70 degree weather at an altitude of 7,000 feet. There were many people on the trail: some were on their way to the summit and some were just hiking so they could ski down.

About 4 hours later, we made it back to the visitor center and were hoping to be able to take showers. Come to find out, the closest showers are at a sort of nearby campsite outside of the park – not happening, we’ll be stinky. We were pretty tired from the hike and Jillian was suffering from a slight sunburn so we just hung around camp for most of the afternoon. Before starting dinner, we decided to check out the trail to the river that was adjacent from our campground. A log was carved to act as a bridge across the water, but it only had a railing on one side so it was a little scary walking across. Once we were back up at camp, we threw some leftover chicken/mushrooms/onions from Applebee’s into our ramen noodles – badda boom badda bing, gormet dinner. We also got a nice little campfire going and had some hot cocoa while we waited for the sun to go down.

Our plan was to head back to the Reflection Lake once the stars were out to try and get some better pictures. At one point, Jillian decided to try to take some long exposure shots with burning sticks. After a small (okay long) learning curve, we finally got a few good shots, and we had killed enough time that the stars were finally out. We hopped in the car and drove down to the lake one last time. When we stepped out of the car we couldn’t help but be amazed. There were more stars visible than anywhere else we had been. The next hour we were in and out of the car, timing the shots of the mountain and the sky. Rico used a penny and duct tape to keep the button down and the shutter open and it worked perfectly. Once we captured the perfect picture, we went straight back to camp to get some sleep