Elain near Reflection Lake
Elain and I hunted for ice in Mt. Rainier National Park over the weekend. The only ice we found was on the road surface, which for about a mile was frozen into an ice rink.
On the drive up to Narada Falls, we saw about five cars slide off the road. One Toyota Tacoma truck was driving along in front of us, and suddenly veered to the left and the front-end plunged into an embankment. It was such a violent turn, we wondered if the driver was trying to pull a "donut" or something. We also witnessed a near Darwin Award in the making, when a SUV was trying to slowly pass a Jeep that was stuck and listing off the roadside. The SUV halted, then started to slide sideways toward the Jeep. Some guy was standing in between the Jeep and the SUV, and just stood there until he almost got crushed. He must have really liked that shiny finish on his Jeep. Made us think of the scene in the trash compactor in Star Wars. We put on our chains, gave our kitty litter to some hapless folks in an old rear-wheel-drive Benz, and got outta there.
Narada Falls was (not unexpectedly) completely thawed and gushing. We wandered around a bit in a hopeless attempt to find some ice, but eventually gave up and went for a nice walk to Reflection Lake. It was snowing hard, but the route to Reflection Lake was easy to follow. The rangers at Longmire told us they expect to switch to "winter camping" rules in the near future, as soon as there is 5 feet of snow at Paradise. Shouldn't take long, at this rate.
Elain near Reflection Lake
Steve on the trail