Even though I love traveling, camping is something I have always been skeptical about. I had so many concerns like sanitation, wild animal attack, camping equipments, what am I going to eat, how will I cook, what all things to carry, etc etc. But my friend said he will arrange everything, nothing bad is gonna happen and it will be a memorable experience. I trusted my friend and took a plunge to do this camping trip. So, was that experience worth it or went hayway? Let's find out !
Mount Rainier is the highest mountain of the Cascade Range of the Pacific Northwest, and the highest mountain in the state of Washington. It is a large active Volcano located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle. You can alson to a full day trip from Seattle or you can self drive from Portland Airport.
Day 1
It was June, 2015 when I was boarding my one-stop flight to Portland, Oregon. I was in utter anticipation for this trip for a very long time. But, when I sat on the flight to Detroit and busy listening to my music, suddenly the crew announced that the flight had some major suction pressure issue so it will be delayed by 2 hours. I panicked. But thankfully, they gave me another flight which was a direct flight to Portland. I was relieved & happy.
I started chatting with my friend asking him which place we are gonna visit - Mt Rainier or Mt St Helens. We were in a dilemma. This was the first time that I didn't know where I was going once I reach Portland. It was a very uncommon situation for me since I plan beforehand. After a thorough discussion with my friend, we finally decided that we will be going to Mt. Rainier. I landed in Portland at around 9:30 pm. My friends arrived at the airport to pick me up and we drove directly to Mount Rainier National Park.
Day 2
The drive to Mount Rainier National Park took us a little more than 3 hours. We entered the National Park around 1:15 am and trying to get a Campsite. It was extremely dark and we could only see the western white pine trees on both sides. It was a beautiful moonlit night. While we were heading towards the camp site, we spotted the beautiful ice-capped Mount Rainier scintillating on the moon-lit night. Whatever our eyes captured was absolutely ecstatic. I was amazed and speechless.There were darkness all around and all we could hear was the soft stream of waterfall flowing downstream peacefully and at the backdrop we could see Mount Rainier. It seemed the time had stopped. The cameras absolutely failed to capture this winsome sight. Nevertheless we tried our best to try and capture as much as we could with our lenses.
Photograph by Angik Sarkar
We drove towards on the same path trying to find a campsite. Finally we found the camp site. We parked the car. We got out the tent from the trunk to set it up for the night for us to sleep in the morning. It was quite chilly weather outside. The campsite was good and had the major facilities : Water and Washroom. After setting up the tent we planned to roam around the whole night, clicking pictures and feel the beauty and calmness of mother nature in utter darkness with the bright moon-lit night. We were driving towards a high altitude where suddenly we saw the scintillating Mt Rainier. So while driving we halted in a few amazing locations to get the maximum view of Mt Rainier. I cannot explain how beautiful it was. May be the pictures can a bit.
We drove to a location where we had to walk a bit to a beautiful waterfall. It was around 3:30 or 4 am, when it was almost dawn and extremely chilly weather, we saw the beautiful Mt Rainier in the background and the Waterfall flowing downstream. We sat there for sometime to feel the serenity and capture some beautiful moments.
We headed towards the Reflection Lake to view the sunrise glittering over the ice-capped Mt Rainier. We stayed there for another hour and headed back to the campsite at around 6:30 am to get some sleep. We woke up at 12 pm noon, freshened up, had some lunch that my friend cooked for us from home before we left for Mt Rainier. We drove to the parking lot from where the hiking trail begins, since we planned to view the beautiful Glacier of Mt Rainier. There are many hiking trails up to the Glacier. So we chose one and hiked along amidst the abundant snow on the ground. The more we were elevating the beautiful the glacier got and we were more and more mesmerized by its view. We could even view Mt Adam and Mt St Helens.
When we reached the Glacier, we sat there for like an hour just to breathe in to the ecstatic beauty of the surrounding, the snow, the cold breeze, the beautiful shades of green spreading widely across the mountains, just took me to another new world. After this we drove back to Portland with the Sunset in the backdrop.
What I have seen and what I have in the photos doesn't make so much justice to the beautiful Mt. Rainier. But yet I tried to click as best as I could. That was an amazing experience. I am very happy that I took that plunge of saying yes to this Camping trip. It was totally worth it. It has been one of my most favourite one till date ! Hope you enjoyed reading.
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