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tiggymalvern
Technically it may no longer be summer, but yesterday you couldn't tell. Shorts and T-shirt weather at 6000 feet in late September is an opportunity not to be missed!
I don't often get around to the west side of Mount Rainier, so despite hiking there regularly for more than a decade, I'd never done the Eunice Lake and Tolmie Peak Lookout hike.
Oh wow. This is a contender for best view in the park. Definitely top three. Mount Rainier National Park can throw views at you that are so eye-boggling they look like fakes.
The hike starts alongside Mowich lake, a gentle trail with the turquoise and electric blue of the lake visible through the trees.
And at the right angle, the first glimpses of Mount Rainier.
A mile in, the trail reaches a junction at Ipsut Pass, with views into the Ipsut Creek valley beyond.
But we're not going down into the valley, we go up to Eunice Lake, where the first view is of the lake beneath precipitous cliffs. And on top of the ridge, where the cliff meets the trees, the Tolmie Peak lookout.
The path wanders along the southern shore of Eunice Lake, into gentler surroundings, with the lookout still visible above.
Western end of Eunice Lake.
Boggy meadow where the creek leaves the lake.
Autumn colours alongside the trail as it starts to climb up to the lookout.
The views just keep on getting better with every step.
When the trail leaves the trees at the ridgeline, the first views are over the back side of the ridge, looking north across more peaks towards the Carbon River valley.
And then you reach the lookout itself, and the view over Eunice Lake to Rainier.
This view is impossible to photograph. It goes round more than 180 degrees, and with the vertical component of the mountain, you'd need to stitch together about eight photos to get it all, and then there are the issues with the different exposures needed... I've done my best with part of it, but it looks like a CGI fantasy land.
And then you get to walk back down and look at it all again :-)
I don't often get around to the west side of Mount Rainier, so despite hiking there regularly for more than a decade, I'd never done the Eunice Lake and Tolmie Peak Lookout hike.
Oh wow. This is a contender for best view in the park. Definitely top three. Mount Rainier National Park can throw views at you that are so eye-boggling they look like fakes.
The hike starts alongside Mowich lake, a gentle trail with the turquoise and electric blue of the lake visible through the trees.
And at the right angle, the first glimpses of Mount Rainier.
A mile in, the trail reaches a junction at Ipsut Pass, with views into the Ipsut Creek valley beyond.
But we're not going down into the valley, we go up to Eunice Lake, where the first view is of the lake beneath precipitous cliffs. And on top of the ridge, where the cliff meets the trees, the Tolmie Peak lookout.
The path wanders along the southern shore of Eunice Lake, into gentler surroundings, with the lookout still visible above.
Western end of Eunice Lake.
Boggy meadow where the creek leaves the lake.
Autumn colours alongside the trail as it starts to climb up to the lookout.
The views just keep on getting better with every step.
When the trail leaves the trees at the ridgeline, the first views are over the back side of the ridge, looking north across more peaks towards the Carbon River valley.
And then you reach the lookout itself, and the view over Eunice Lake to Rainier.
This view is impossible to photograph. It goes round more than 180 degrees, and with the vertical component of the mountain, you'd need to stitch together about eight photos to get it all, and then there are the issues with the different exposures needed... I've done my best with part of it, but it looks like a CGI fantasy land.
And then you get to walk back down and look at it all again :-)
no subject
Date: 2021-10-10 06:32 pm (UTC)