On Monday, July 31, 2023, Andy, Kathrin, Sean, and I spent the day at Mount Rainier National Park. Our primary goal had been to get up on the mountain early and do “one great hike.” One route that a friend of Kathrin had recommended, the Tipsoo Lake and Naches Peak Loop, had a five-star rating with an easy-to-moderate difficulty rating in my hiking guide. It seemed perfect, and in fact it was.

We wanted to get onto the mountain early, so we were up at 5am.

Kathrin arrived just before 6am, and we piled into her car.

We stopped for coffees and croissants before getting on I-5 and heading south toward Rainier. I drove, Andy rode shotgun because he gets carsick. Kathrin does too, but she preferred to have me drive on this day.

Once off of I-5 and heading east to the north of the Park, we passed some large, homemade human trafficking signs of the hysterical Q-anon-adjacent variety. Yikes!

The day was literally cloudless. We were in for spectacular views.

We entered the Park at its northeast corner along Mather Memorial Parkway.

Bypassing the White River Entrance, which leads up to the Sunrise area of the Park, we headed south to Cayuse Pass, turned left, and switchbacked up to the Tipsoo Lake Parking Area. As we neared the parking area, we could hear the whistles of Pikas. And then Kathrin spotted one! Hurray, a Pika would be the stuffed animal for Mount Rainier.

We parked at 8:30am, shouldered our day packs, used the pit toilets, and were on the trail by 8:45.

The trail is a 3.7 mile loop with an elevation gain of a mild 685 feet. The high point is 5,890 feet above sea level.

It was a stupid beautiful morning. Warm in the sun, but not too hot. Absolutely cloudless.

Tipsoo Lake was astoundingly clear, and we watched scores of tadpoles swimming among the rocks on the bottom.

And then we spotted a very cool Northwestern Salamander. Some of the adults, like this one, in high elevation lakes, never shed their gills.

“Tipsoo” translates to “grassy” in Chinook jargon. It wasn’t hard to see why the lake was named what it was. Before starting on the Naches Peak loop in earnest, we meandered along the trail that circumnavigated the lake.

Soon we got our first glimpse of the summit of Mount Rainier across the road.

After our walk around the lake, we started the Naches Peak loop in earnest, heading clockwise to maximize our views of the Mountain later in the hike.

Making the short ascent to the first ridge, we passed a couple changing a poopy diaper just off the trail.

Up on the ridge, we crossed the road as it continued out of Mount Rainier National Park and into Wenatchee National Forest.

Established in 1899, Mount Rainier National Park is relatively small at 236,000 acres. By comparison, Yosemite National Park is 760,000 acres and Death Valley National Park is 3.4 million acres. I’d imagine that had the Park been established later, it may have been bigger to take into fuller account the ecosystems and watersheds (and not to maximize the surrounding land held by the Department of Agriculture in the form of the Forest Service).

The highway continued off to the northeast.

But our trail headed east along the slopes of Naches Peak. We were now heading south/southeast on a section of the Pacific Crest Trail.

As we exited Mount Rainier National Park and entered Wenatchee National Forest, we also entered the William O. Douglas Wilderness, named for the stalwart conservationist Supreme Court justice who grew up in nearby Yakima, Washington.

We were generally trending upward, and Andy observed that it felt like maybe this was more than a 500-foot elevation hike.

As the trail turned to the south on the eastern slopes of Naches Peak, new views began to open up.

And we stopped to look at a charming little unnamed mountain lake.

We continued on from the lake.

Near the turn back toward the west, we encountered an older couple observing a Canada Jay, which they called a “Camp Robber.”

Now to the south/southeast we had grand views of Dewey Lake far below.

Shortly we exited the William O. Douglas Wilderness and Wenatchee National Forest and reentered Mount Rainier National Park.

And now the views of the Mountain came, just gobsmacking, in front of us.

While we paused to take in the first big view of Rainier, a Golden-Mantled Ground Squirrel started begging at our feet.

We overheard the older couple observe that since the Squirrel was habituated to people that they may as well just beat it to death with a hiking pole. That seemed a bit…much.

In my notebook, I described the views as “fucking stupid.”

We stopped for lunch on a ridge between big views of Mount Rainier to the west and views down to Dewey Lake to the east. It was a spectacular place to munch on our peanut butter and potato chip wraps.

From the ridge, the trail trended generally downward.

We ran into a Cascade Frog hanging out on the trail.

Although we didn’t clock it at the time, Mount St. Helens was visible in the distance.

And a huge Golden Eagle circled nearby in the warm updrafts.

Two the south, Mount Adams, the next volcano in the chain, came into view.

The trail turned north/northwest, and we began a rapid descent back to Tipsoo Lake.

We noticed Park staff working on something above the trail to the right.

Down we went to the shores of Little Tipsoo Lake across the road and slightly higher than her larger sister.

From off in the scree field, we could hear Pikas whistling to each other.

We arrived back at the parking area around 11:45. Overall it was an absolutely splendid three hour, forty-five minute hike. And we could not have asked for a more glorious day.

It was still fairly early, so we decided not to head back down yet, but instead to go up to the nearby Sunrise area of the Park, even if it meant having to wait in a line to get in. Whatever we would be able to see and do at Sunrise would be icing on the cake at this point. (Plus we had to hit a Visitor Center to get our Passport stamps.)