Sunrise at Sunrise - well almost

I love early morning light on the mountain. That first hour or two following sunrise is my favorite. The lighting is beautiful, and really shows the mountain off in a very special way. There’s also a quietness you can find early in the morning that disappears with the rush of people that prefer to sleep a little longer. We were camping nearby so didn’t have to rise too early for our mountain adventure.

Or so we thought. The sun had already risen when we reached the entry gate to Mount Rainier National Park. There was a surprisingly large number of cars in line to get in. Maybe we should have gotten up a little earlier. This is something that has changed with the reservation system. Those early morning hours that used to be pretty quiet, now seem to be filled with more people.

The parking lot was full when we reached the visitor center at 6:45 AM, but the mountain was gorgeous! After Scott found a parking spot, I quickly hopped out of the truck to get a better look.

 There’s something about the ‘Sunrise’ side of the mountain that feels very different from the ‘Paradise’ side of the mountain. There’s a rawness to the sunrise side that isn’t there on the other side. And being 1000 feet higher in elevation, the mountain just feels HUGE.

There are some great hikes from this side of the mountain that I have yet to explore, but unfortunately, they would be waiting for another day. We were pretty tired from the previous days’ activities. So mostly we just came to enjoy the mountain in the early morning light. We were not disappointed.

We enjoyed the views for a couple of hours, and then headed back down the mountain. It was a little too crowded for our taste just to hang out. One of the nice things about having a pass is that we can come and go frequently as it suits us. We’ll come back again another day.

On to the next adventure.