July 26, 2013
Rob and Ginny were flying in to SeaTac to stay with us while they visited Uncle Harry who isn't feeling well. Since Rob arrived on Thursday evening, we had all of Friday to do something interesting before Ginny arrived on Saturday. Fortunately the weather cooperated with a beautiful, warm, blue-sky day and Rob was up for a minor road trip.
We took the eastside route down through Enumclaw and up along the White River over Cayuse Pass. There were great views of Rainier but we didn't stop until we passed through the Ohanapecosh entrance station and reached Box Canyon. We walked a very short loop trail across a bridge over the 115-ft deep gorge then continued up Stevens Canyon. Reaching the picnic area just below Paradise we stopped for lunch in the mixed shade and sun. Paradise itself turned out to have a weekend-size crowd with full parking lots and people parked along the road for half a mile. We had to continue around the one-way loop all the way back to the Reflection Lakes area before returning to Paradise. This time I dropped C.J. and Rob off at the lower parking lot (where the old (1960's) visitor center had been) and drove the short distance back to park in the picnic area. I caught up with them at the new (2008) visitor center which must be taking up some of the old main parking lot. Rob figured his feet and knees would be able to do the 2-mile round trip to Alta Vista so we set off on the steep, but paved trail. As expected from the parking situation, the trail was quite busy. We met lots of climbers coming down and lots of tourists going up. Right from the parking lot, it was obvious that this was prime wildflower season and C.J. got some good photos. Near the top of the trail we crossed a snowfield to look down at the Nisqually glacier canyon, then took a different trail most of the way down. Near the bottom we headed left to reach the Paradise Inn. It was reported to have been remodeled since the last time we had been up here but I had no memory of what it had looked like previously - it still looked old and rustic. It was around 1600 when we pulled out of the picnic area parking and headed down the west side through Longmire and out the Ashford gate. Home by 1830 [We could see a fire as we entered North Bend - looked to be not far from the Little Si trailhead.]
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