Mt. Rainier

So we made it to Mt. Rainer in the in the late evening. It was raining and the cloud coverage blocked our view of top. We decided to drive to Paradise (the most visited area of the park). As we drove we realized that there were not a whole lot of other cars traveling these roads with us = ) Before we reached Paradise we stopped at the Cougar Rock Campground, where we considered spending the night. We saw only one other camper and he looked like he had just stopped to rest. So we continued up to Paradise where we found that the Inn and the Visitor centers were closed for reconstruction. Right below this area we had seen signs for overnight parking. We went down into this area and found parking areas that had picnic tables and public restrooms. We had read in the Park paper that there was no sleeping in your vehicles, and were confused by this area. We decided that it was getting late and we were going to just park here for the evening and sleep. As it became dark, it felt strange to be there. Even though we were parked on blacktop with public bathrooms near by, and workers just a half mile or so above us, we felt very secluded. We are not taught to be comfortable with this type of solitude. It was eerie! The clouds cleared just enough for us to be able to see the looming silhouette of Mount Rainier just behind us and the snow flakes that were now falling and beginning to stick on the trees and bushes beside us. A moonlit snowfall…breathtaking! We put on our base layers, let the van get as warm as it would, and went to sleep.
Mt. Rainier is covered by clouds 200 days out of the year. As we woke to the very slight hint of sunlight through the clouds we could not see the Mountain at all. As we got up and dressed though we stopped looking at it for a few minutes, and all of a sudden we turned around and almost all of the cloud cover had lifted giving us a beautiful view of the mountain. We sat there getting ready, eating breakfast, and just looking in awe at the beautiful snow covered peak that the Native Americans called “Mountain of God”. As we left the park we had to drive carefully down to due snow/ice dusted roads. We stopped at the Narada Falls on our way out of the park and then continued to Mt. St. Helens.