Day 41

Monday, our 41st day, was what we knew it would be - a washout due to rain and fog.  We still drove over 100 miles through a different area of the park but found no sight of the top of Mt. Rainier.  And the one and only time we would have liked to have snow on the ground, the forecasted 2-4 inches never came overnight.

We did take pictures of the areas we visited but can't get them posted until tomorrow.

On edit: it's now Wednesday and just getting pictures posted.

Road pictures on the way into the park. We are starting to see "color change" in the scenery. Love it.

The inevitable....rain

River bed inside the park. Imagine the amount of water that comes shooting down the valleys with the Spring thaw
 and heavy rain. It brings down trees and anything in its path.  

The rivers that flow thru the park are mostly a "milky white" color due to what is called glacial flour. This is an indication of glacial movement. There are 26 major glaciers that are on Mt. Rainier and the ice is blue because it is compressed and compacted and very thick 

Lots of moss on all kinds of trees. This is a very moist environment

Can't help it! Our ever patient daughter. One thing about the cooler temperatures; Isabelle loves the sightseeing drives

Colors are starting to turn

This is basically a river of rock during the spring thaw.  Now just a trickle, but one can only try to imagine standing on this bridge when the river is flowing full of rock and water.  I must sound like a tornado!

This is what we hoped to see but had to settle for a picture of a picture at the Visitor Center on top.  This is pretty close to what the view would have been - we are actually that close.

Mt. Rainier is up there hidden by fog and clouds so this is all we could see.  Still very pretty.

We did not expect it to be so green

One of hundreds of little streams

The river of rock from higher up

Back at camp after our drive we took Isabelle for a walk and found this gigantic old tree trunk lying on its' side;
thought it looked pretty cool