Trip to Mt. Rainier

I have visited Mt. Rainier few times but I always felt that I missed to see something in the park. When I visited Mt. Rainier first time along with my friends, we hiked till Paradise point and saw many people coming down with hiking gears. I wished that, one day I should hike the mountain and experience the magic. I am still awaiting for the day to come.

In my second visit, I went to take a couple of sunrise picture of the mountain with the reflection lake. The reflection of the mountain in the lake and the sun rise was really beautiful.

In my third visit, I went along with my wife for snow shoeing. It was my first time snow shoeing, so I was bit nervous, my wife had done it before so she helped me with it. We could see a lot of people playing, skiing and snow shoeing, the mountain was clam and beautiful . We hiked till Myrtle falls, I never been to this falls before, the falls was really small and was covered with ice .

Last month, I was thinking to go to Mt. Rainier again to take sunset, stars, milky way and sunrise photos .  Finally, me and my wife decided to go on Juneteenth day. We booked a room at the Cowlitz river lodge at PackWood, WA. The park entrance is 15 min away from the lodge.

We started around 5.30 pm pst on 17th June 2021 from home. I had set the map to Tipsoo lake which is 3hrs 15 mins drive from my home and we reached there around 8:45 pm PST. I was bit sad and shocked to see the frozen Tipsoo Lake. We parked the car and were looking for some place to take the photos. Near the sidewalk we could see a lot of photographers taking the mountain photos , we joined them. Mountain looked so beautiful during the sunset, so we took few photos and stayed there for 15 mins.

We started back and reached the hotel around 10 pm pst, the hotel staff was waiting for us, as we were the last customers to check in for the day. The hotel was nice and it had a good lawn area and we even saw elks grazing in the lawn . We checked in to the hotel and had food. We took rest for an hour and started back to take stars and milky way photos in the park. We saw a lot of deer and elk's on the road, so we drove slowly to avoid accidents. The sky was bit bright because of the half moon ,so we were searching for a place to take milky way photo and finally we stopped the car on the side of the road 5 mins before the Tipsoo lake.

I took my gear out to set it up, it was so dark couldn't see anything other than stars and mountains. I took multiple photos to set the camera with correct settings. Once i got the settings right, i took few photos of the milky way over the mountains. Then, we went again to Tipsoo Lake to take some more photos with moon . I saw few folks walking on the lake in the night, I quickly took couple of photos of mountain and move to a different spot to take the milky way photos. We spent around 15mins and went to back to lodge, we reached the lodge around 1.30 am pst.

After seeing the frozen Tipsoo Lake, we were thinking of skipping the sunrise but still we kept an alarm at 4.15 am pst. We got up and started around 4.45 am pst to go the reflection lake. When we reached the lake, again I was bit sad to see that the lake was frozen. I took couple of photos and drove towards the Paradise point. On the way back, we took the pictures of the waterfalls and glaciers. We reached the hotel around 7 am pst and slept for another 2hrs. Breakfast was provided at the hotel, so we had it and started back home around 11 am pst.

Every time, i go to the Mt. Rainier National park, i see the mountain differently and it's always more beautiful. We will go again when the lakes are un frozen and would try to do some hikes in the park.