Locator Map: Mount Rainier National Park

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Around Mount Rainier

This Drive Comes From...

National Geographic Driving Guide: Pacific Northwest

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Mount Rainier serves as this drive’s hub, seldom out of view as you make a big circle around the 14,410-foot [4,392.2-meter] peak. The Northwest’s highest mountain anchors a beautiful national park replete with old-growth forests, flowery subalpine meadows, and rivers born from the glaciers that streak the peak’s upper slopes. The nature theme continues outside the park at a wildlife park and in the surrounding national forests and designated wilderness areas, with Tacoma providing the urban note. CONTINUED

- Federation Forest State Park
- Sunrise
- Paradise
- Northwest Trek Wildlife Park
- Tacoma

(Continued From Top)

Federation Forest State Park

Mount Rainier, from Paradise

Photograph © Phil Schofield

Though 70 miles [112 kilometers] away from Tacoma, where the drive begins, Mount Rainier rules the horizon, beckoning. Why resist? Give in and drive southeast on Washington 167 and 410. You’ll soon pick up the White River, which you can follow right up to the glaciers on Mount Rainier’s northeast flank. Stop at Federation Forest State Park (40 miles [64.4 kilometers] E of Tacoma, just W of Greenwater. +1 360 663 2207. Early May–late Oct. or by appt.), where a modest but well-conceived Interpretive Center provides an introduction to the state’s main ecological zones, and two trails thick with informative signs lead through the forest and along the river.

Sunrise
About 15 minutes south on Washington 410 lies the northeast boundary of Mount Rainier National Park (+1 360 569 2211. Some areas open year-round, others seasonal; Adm. fee). Five miles [8 kilometers] into the park, take the winding road leading west up to Sunrise, the highest point in the park accessible by car (6,400 feet; 1,950.7 meters). Allow plenty of time to make your way up the 16-mile [25.8-kilometer] spur; not only is the road serpentine, but trails, a campground, and viewpoints may waylay you. For example, the Glacier Basin Trail leads from the White River Campground to a close view of Emmons Glacier, the largest glacier in the lower 48 states.
Upon reaching the end of this road, the first order of business is to gape at the looming mountain. Then it’s time to hike Sunrise’s extensive trail system. For grand views reaching as far as the Canadian mountains 150 miles [241.4 kilometers] away, troop up the moderately demanding Burroughs Mountain Trail or Mount Fremont Trail through alpine tundra, an Arctic-like habitat of rocks and low-growing plants. Scan the ground for hoary marmots, plump, woodchuck-looking rodents that emit shrill whistles. Keep an eye open for mountain goats on the steep slopes, those white-haired, goateed climbers par excellence. Human climbers may also be visible on the mountain’s icy inclines.
Continue down Washington 410 until Cayuse Pass, then take Washington 123 south Washington 410 takes a sharp turn east). Follow this for 11 miles [17.7 kilometers] through stream-laced forests to the Stevens Canyon Entrance, then turn west onto the road that traverses the southern expanse of the park. You’ll soon arrive at the trailhead to the Grove of the Patriarchs. An easy walk of less than a mile [1.6 kilometers] (one way) along the Ohanapecosh River leads to the grove of old-growth trees that tower above an island in the river and give the trail its name. Cross the bridge, stroll beneath their mossy, gnarled limbs, and touch the rough, deeply furrowed bark of their massive trunks, some a good 10 feet [3.1 meters] in diameter. Many of these ancient Douglas-firs and western red cedars were around before Columbus sailed in 1492; a few sprouted more than a thousand years ago. Signs tell how these old ones avoided and survived fire, flood, and disease. To see a younger, more vital old-growth forest of great beauty, go back over the bridge and branch off to the north on the East Side Trail. Sample a mile or so of this lush forest or, if you’re feeling energetic, hike its full length back to the Cayuse Pass area.
To the west, numerous viewpoints and trails invite lingering as the road eases through untouched forest, passing rugged ridges, creeks, and peaks. An easy, half-mile [0.8-kilometer] walk from the Box Canyon/Muddy Fork Cowlitz bridge shows off a dizzyingly deep and narrow river gorge; in places it’s 180 feet [54.9 meters] to the crashing whitewater and the chasm is around 20 feet [6.1 meters] wide.

Paradise
A few miles farther the Reflection Lakes provide rippling, impressionistic images of Mount Rainier. Finally, you enter Paradise, so called by early travelers who thought the landscape so heavenly that no other name would do. The foreground consists of subalpine meadows renowned for their summer wildflowers. Avalanche lilies, red mountainheath, marsh marigolds, magenta painted cup, partridge foot, and many other species thrust their brilliant blossoms into the sunlight in a passionate effort to reproduce during the brief summer. Several creeks and dozens of thin, murmuring rivulets flash down the slopes amid clumps of fir, cedar, and hemlock.

Many trails thread through these meadows. Nisqually Vista Trail, an easy, 1.2-mile [1.9-kilometer] interpretive loop, swings across the meadows to the rim of the ravine above the snout of Nisqually Glacier. The more strenuous, 6-mile [9.7-kilometer] Skyline Trail ascends along the eastern flank of the glacier up into the alpine, then descends back through idyllic meadows to the Paradise Inn (+1 360 569 2275). Check out (or into) this 1917 lodge. The long, lofty-ceilinged lobby has grand stone fireplaces at either end, a thicket of cedar beams above, and much decorative woodwork, most of which was done one winter by a German carpenter using only an adze. A rustic piano and a towering grandfather clock made by this fine craftsman also grace the lobby. Nearby is the park Visitor Center (Daily May-Oct., weekends Nov.-April), a round building whose displays on the natural and human history of Mount Rainier are reached via a slowly ascending spiral ramp. At the top you emerge into a huge, circular room where floor-to-ceiling windows provide superb views.

Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

Photograph © Phil Schofield

From Paradise, 10 winding miles [16.1 kilometers] past waterfalls, rock pinnacles, come-hither trails, and dense forest you arrive at Longmire, site of a modest park museum, a wilderness information center, a small historic lodge, and an extensive trail network. The short and easy Trail of the Shadows includes the mineral springs that motivated James Longmire to develop a health resort in this area in 1884. The road soon leaves the park and becomes Washington 706. Take this to Washington 7, detouring to Eatonville, where you pick up Washington 161 north to Northwest Trek Wildlife Park (+1 360 832 6117 or 800 433 8735. Daily March-Oct., Fri.-Sun. and some holidays rest of year; Adm. fee). Northwest Trek encloses a whopping 435 acres [176 hectares] of forest, meadows, and swamps and lets its animals wander freely (except for the wolves, bears, and other predators, which are separately penned). Visitors circulate in trams driven by naturalists. The animals behave pretty much as they would in freedom: Rutting bull elk emit high-pitched squeals and spar with each other; an orange bison calf nurses from its mother; and trumpeter swans sound their bugles.

Tacoma

Tacoma's Union Station

Photograph © Phil Scofield

Continue north to Washington 167 and back to Tacoma (Visitor Center +1 206 627 2836 or 800 272 2662). Start downtown at Tacoma’s longtime visual keystone, the immense copper dome of Union Station (1717 Pacific Ave. +1 206 572 9310. Mon.-Fri.), built in 1911. Most of this monument to train travel is now a federal courthouse, but the area under the dome holds a fantastic collection of glass art by noted artist Dale Chihuly, a Tacoma native. This exhibit is a branch of the nearby Tacoma Art Museum (Pacific Ave. and 12th St. +1 206 272 4258. Closed Mon.; Adm. fee), which houses a varied collection in a historic bank building.
But don’t leave the area just yet. In 1996, the Washington State History Museum (1911 Pacific Ave. +1 206 272 3500 or +1 888 238 4373. Closed Mon. Labor Day–Mem. Day; Adm. fee) moved right next to Union Station, its towering brick archways reflecting the landmark architecture of its venerable neighbor. This is the finest history museum in the Northwest, offering an exceptional depth of information made lively in a multitude of ways. A computer-animated tabletop map shows the geologic evolution of Washington; by pressing buttons, visitors make mountains rise and rivers change course. At “Small Fry Outfitters,” kids don pioneer clothing. You can listen to an audio program on southern coast Salish life inside a plank house built by a native craftsman using traditional tools, materials, and methods. The museum also tackles hard and sometimes controversial subjects, such as the nuclear pollution at the Hanford Site and the job discrimination against blacks perpetrated by Boeing in the 1940s.

Tacoma skyline

Photograph © Phil Schofield

View Tacoma’s vital shipping industry by taking the 11th Street Bridge to the docks and proceeding to the Port Observation Tower (+1 206 383 5841. Call for directions) beside the Port of Tacoma office. From the tower you can get good looks at several monster cranes as they load and unload ships in this sixth largest of America’s container ports.
Just north of downtown, echoes of the past surface in the Stadium-Seminary Historic District, anchored by Stadium High School (111 North E St.). Originally designed as a resort hotel, this 1891 exaggeration of a French chteau bristles with spires and turrets. Nearby is Wright Park—the whole park is on the National Register of Historic Places—and its centerpiece, the 1908 W. W. Seymour Botanical Conservatory (316 South G St. +1 206 591 5330). This glass-domed Victorian shelters more than 500 species of tropical plants. Across G Street is an often overlooked treasure: the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum (407 South G St. +1 206 383 2575. Closed Mon.), one of seven Karpeles museums in the country. Selections from the extensive collection are displayed for nonscholars in two rooms. Typically, one room follows a theme. An exhibit on medical history, for example, showed handwritten documents and letters from Benjamin Franklin, Clara Barton, Louis Pasteur, Florence Nightingale, and many others. The other room offers a potpourri, such as a 17th-century map that shows California as an island.
The 700 forested acres [283.3 hectares] of Point Defiance Park occupy the peninsula that juts into Puget Sound from northwest Tacoma. The scenic Five Mile Drive serves up trails, picnic areas, an understory of rhododendrons, and views of the sound. The park also holds Fort Nisqually Historic Site (+1 206 591 5339. Daily Mem. Day–Labor Day, Wed.-Sun. rest of year; Adm. fee), a reproduct ion of an 1840s Hudson’s Bay Company post, and Camp 6 Logging Museum (+1 206 752 0047. Mid-Jan.–Oct. Wed.-Sun.), where artifacts and displays detail life in Northwest logging camps from 1880 to 1950.
The park’s highlight is the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium (+1 206 591 5335. Adm. fee), which concentrates on the animals of the Pacific Rim. That theme allows great latitude—literally—and includes musk oxen from the high Arctic, tiger quolls from Australia, lemurs from Southeast Asia, and Northwest natives, such as sea otters, puffins, and Dungeness crabs. Explore the humid tropics at the Discovery Reef Aquarium and descend into an ocean reef. The incredible numbers and variety of sharks are especially engaging. Go to the other ends of the earth to see the excellent exhibits of polar creatures, and hang around for the rude nose-blowing antics of the walruses—sure to delight the kids—and the penguin choir, wherein Magellanic penguins crowd together, raise their preposterous bills to the sky, and squawk and honk in raucous song.