Mount Rainier Vacation Part 2 - Owyhigh lakes

Day 2
We had many wonderful (wet & chilly) days on this vacation. I'm sharing each day in separate posts. Part 1 was our camp at White River, you can read about it HERE.

We had several hike ideas selected before we left home. If the weather cooperated we were hoping to include a night or two of backpacking. Since it was cold and wet most of each of our days there, we just decided to stay at our campsite and "weather" through our day hikes :-)

We woke to rain for our first hike of the trip, so we chose Owyhigh Lakes for the day. We packed our day packs with our lunch and got all of our rain gear on and drove a short distance to the trail head.

The trail can also be hiked as a point to point with a long car shuttle. We chose the out and back route since we only had the one car.

  The guidebook we used for our selection of hikes was the Falcon Guide "Hiking Mount Rainier National Park" by Heidi Schneider and Mary Skjelset. I liked the description it gave of this little footbridge in the book. "A prepared log stretching across Tamanos creek marks the end of the ascent". I don't think I've ever heard of a log bridge referred to as a prepared log!

The clouds were just high enough to give us short views of what was around us.

Owyhigh lakes

Governors ridge/Cowlitz chimneys

We strolled on a bit farther on the trail past the lakes and turned around where the trail began it's descent.

We did manage to catch a quick view of some blue in the sky.

Back down the switchbacks to the car.

I would highly recommend this hike if you are in the area. Especially on a rainy day. The hike up in the forest was beautiful and the trees offered some protection from the rain. We found that even on a seemingly dismal day we could enjoy a good forest hike with some views.

We hiked about 7.5 miles to about 5,400 feet with a 1700 feet ascent.

Lake Ann Trailblazer hike

A wonderful and very warm hiking day for us Senior Trailblazers for our hike to Lake Ann.

Usually in the mountains we hike up at the start of our hikes and then the return trip to our cars is a welcome "up". This hike starts with a downhill through the forest, through a lovely opening with a few creek crossings and then up again to the lake. Then since it's an out and back trail, we reverse everything...hike down, enjoy the lovely opening and creek crossings and then finish with a nice shady forest "up" back to the cars. It was a long hike and a couple of our group stopped at about the 1/2 way point and said they would return to the cars and wait for us, another stopped short of the rocky area and headed back as well. The rest of us rallied on to the top for lunch before returning.

The scenery was in a word "glorious".

I thought the flowers below that had gone to seed looked very magical.

Mt. Baker in the distance

Lake Ann

Thanks to Leslie for getting this shot of me in front of Shuksan.

A perfect place for lunch, what a view.

I'm guessing it snowed here recently as all of the grass is flattened as if by a weight.

After a head count to make sure that we had all returned intact to the cars, we made our way to Graham's for the coveted ice cream at the end of our long day's hike.

Bliss!

Endomondo stats:

Total miles hiked - 8.7 miles

Minimum altitude - 3908 feet 

Maximum altitude - 4849 feet

Total ascent - 1853 feet

Total descent - 1852