On Top of the World

Ever had something on your bucket list that is illusive and for some reason you never do it?

Yah visiting Mount Rainer was just that item for me.  Mount Rainer is an icon of Seattle. Its the mountain you see in every post card of Seattle. It's part of what defines Seattle's outdoorsy attitude.  Its majestic, a volcano and basically our backyard.

For years, YEARS, Blueberry and I have talked about going to Mount Rainer. Each year comes and goes and we don't do it.

This year I moved it to the top of my list that was a MUST. I put it on the calendar and I finally made it.

Mrs. Landlord and I took off early on Saturday and we headed south. Like with any roadtrip in Sparky the key is to get there without hitting the freeway.  We took the back roads through Maple Valley and into Black Diamond.  Once in Black Diamond, we stopped to have breakfast at this fantastic little bakery called The Black Diamond Bakery - clever huh. 

The bakery part of this restaurant was full of home made baked goods.  It was a bit overwhelming to see all the pastries and cookies and what not. 

We choose to have an actual breakfast. Both of us had the biscuits and gravy.  Delicious.  Absolutely delicious.

Once done with breakfast we hit the road. I had found a website that outlines a couple of different scenic routes to take. Each route this website lists has a bunch of stops they recommend. So Mrs. Landlord was the navigator and reader of what the stop was about.

First stop, Federation Forest State Park.  Turns out it's not actually a stop in as much as it's the forest area around Rainer.  Well, part of it. It's a 619 acre state park started by a group of women in the 1940s who wanted to preserve the old growth timber. We didn't stop - we drove through and did the obligatory OOOOh's and Ahhhhhh's.

Next stop Greenwater.  Greenwater is a funky little town that is essentially the last town before the mountain and one of our major ski resorts here in Washington, Crystal Mountain. The important thing to know about Greenwater is this is where the Nachez Tavern is.  We had lunch there on our way back down the mountain.  Talk about a bar with character.  When we walked in Toby Keith's song "I Love This Bar" was playing and I gotta say, if it needed a theme song, this was it. 

Parked out front were rows of motorcycles - which could only mean one thing - its a cool little joint.

Moving on - our next stop was the Mount Rainer Viewpoint.  Now I would have thought that this would be a location where you'd see a wide sweeping view of Mt. Rainer. At least in my mind that's what it would have been.  Turns out you get a "peak" of Mt. Rainer from this place.  I blinked an almost missed it.

Sparky looked good there though, so it was worth the stop.

The next stop was Suntop Lookout. Somehow Mrs. Landlord and I both missed the turn off so we didn't get a chance to check this out. Probably just as well since it had words like "gravel road" and "requires 4 wheel drive" in the description. 

Skookum Falls was our next stop.  These falls drop 250ft, into the White River.  The White River is what amazed me more than anything else. The falls had barely anything falling down them. In fact, I had to squint to even see the falls.  I expected these glorious falls, and got a dribble. Still it's beautiful.

So the White River water is actually white. It's like milk.  I stood and just stared at it.  I'd never seen anything like it. It's white because of glacier silt or glacier "flour" they call it.  It was one of the coolest things I had seen in a long time. It really sometimes are the simplest things that make me smile.

Finally we reached where we were headed the turn off to Sunrise.  Sunrise is a postcard perfect location to see the mountain.  It sits at 6400 ft and is as far as you can drive up the mountain. There's a small vista point on the way to Sunrise where we stopped to stare in wonder.  Mount Rainer in one direction and Mount Adams in another.  Then all around was the most glorious landscape I've seen in a long time.

Mount Rainer off in the distance.

Mount Adams is off in the distance.

Another beautiful vista from the top of the world.

Even Sparky and Daisy got into the view.

Once at the top of Sunrise there's a ranger station there that has a small museum with a ton of great information about the mountain. This time of year is a fairy tale of color up there with the wild flowers in full bloom.  It was glorious. Just glorious.

This totally reminded me of something Dr. Seuss would dream up

I really could go on and on about how beautiful this mountain is. And like anything of such beauty pictures really don't do it justice. 

And there's another side of the mountain to see!!! I'll be going to that side in a couple of weeks.  Can't wait.  I can then check "See Mount Rainer" off my ever expanding bucket list.