Mount Ranier, WA

After our backpacking miles in Olympic (and taco bell) we arrived at Cowlitz Falls campground just south of Mount Ranier. Booking almost everything in advance meant we have had some positive and negative campground experiences, but this place was nice. We had a quiet site, set back in the woods, and the showers had temperature control!!

To take advantage of the nice site and rest up a bit, we changed plans and added a 3rd night to our stay in Cowlitz, pushing out our Ranier backpacking plans.

Day one in Ranier we updated our permits and visited the south side, where we parked ourselves on a bench in the visitor’s center for the afternoon and did some reconfiguring of our Australia and Thailand itinery to reduce time spent driving/transferring locations – a lesson learned from the past two months.

The next day we did a popular hike on the south side called the Skyline trail. This had nice views of Ranier and the surrounding mountains and left us the second part of the day to attempt to rinse some clothes at our campsite and make breakfast burritos.

The one day push to our backpacking plans worked in our favor, and we secured better camping locations. We completed the North Loop (33.4 miles) over the course of two nights. The backcountry campsites at Ranier are dedicated and strictly permitted to help reduce impact. Our permits were checked three times by rangers.

Part of this trail was a relentless, sweaty slog and the other was stunning views of the mountain and glaciers above bright green meadows.

The glaciers on Mount Ranier are massive and surround all sides. We learned that the glaciers here contain more water than all the rest of volcanoes in the Cascade range, and make Ranier particularly dangerous. A small amount of volcanic activity could send water and debris floods to surround towns very quickly.

Half of the North Loop is made up of the Wonderland Trail, which is 93 miles around Ranier. This park exceeded our expectations, and we have talked extensively about potentially completing the full trail in the future.

After completing the North Loop, Jon-David had a Ranier beer from the visitor center and we went to find a campsite for the night on a forest road. The one we found had a great tent location, but far more bees than was reasonable, creating a loud drone outside the tent. We survived and spent the next day doing chores like getting a car wash and an oil change because the Mazda is the real hero of our story.