Mountainside Wildflowers

We had a lovely trip to Mt. Rainier today despite it being socked in...we went up to the Sunrise part of the mountain and saw these lovely Lupines and Indian Paintbrushes along the was...almost to the top. Naturally I had to swerve over (carefully) to make sure to get some photographs!!!

We left early with our good pals stopping first at the Black Diamond Bakery--herehas a large wood fired oven in which they do daily baking of scrumptious baked goods and breads. We each made our selections and checked out the gift store and then carried on! We stopped in Greenwater here for bodily needs and another gift store and mountain crafts/clothes.

Finally began the accent up to Sunrise side of Mt. Rainierhere---only it was cloud rise today. But there were lovely wildflowers and phenomenal smells of fresh evergreens--cedar and douglas fir and western hemlocks----hmmm! And many views of mini waterfalls and all the ragged craigly surrounding peaks of Rainier. Once up to Sunrise we found a picnic table next to a huge wall of snow---perfect! The trails were still covered in snow so we were not able to walk on any of them which was too bad, but another time. It was very very unusual for the snow to be still up there mid-July. But then our summer hasn't really arrived yet either!

I'll be back to better commenting soon...hope all your weekends were lovely and for those already back to work---hang in there!