Mt. Rainier National Park - Washington

When I get out of town, I like to visit as many places as I can while I'm in the area. A planned trip to Seattle offered some opportunities that I couldn't pass up. I had a few museums on my list, but one thing I had to do was go visit Mt. Rainier National Park. I did and I loved it.

Mt. Rainier is what they call a stratovolcano. I'm not going to get into the science of what that is. That's why we have the internet. But a few other examples of a stratovolcano are the nearby Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Fuji in Japan, and Mt. Vesuvius in Italy. I'm not sure if you remember when Mt. St. Helens erupted, but it was a big deal. You can see videos of it and it was quite a spectacle. And, unless you're one of the immortals, you don't remember Mt. Vesuvius erupting, but you can read about how it decimated Pompeii and Herculaneum. So, when we went hiking around this huge hill, it was in the back of my mind that it could explode at any given moment. But I didn't let the thought of potential impending doom linger too long in my head because the views were gorgeous.

We made our way into the Sunrise Visitors Center at the foot of the mountain. It has a little museum about the area and a nice gift shop where I bought a few mementos of the trip. I learned about what Mt. Rainier was, what it is, and what it could be. Since I'm a museum nerd, I took it all in and snapped some photos. But what I really wanted to do was get on a trail and see the natural beauty that was surrounding me. Even though I had been walking miles and miles everyday, the elevation and steeper hills than I'm used to had me huffing and puffing. But it was still awesome.

Before I went to this National Park, I didn't really have them on my list of places I HAD to go. They were more of a place to go if I had time. Well, now I'm going MAKE time to go see these American national treasures. And I want to support the Park Rangers that work tirelessly to maintain these areas for us. I appreciate them.

Jonathan Elmore ©2025