August 2023September 2023 October 2023

09/29 - Little River

It has been a very dry summer, so we haven't been hiking the Little River Trail. This trail is at its best when the river is flowing in full spate, so we've been waiting for the autumn rains. They've been coming, so we headed up to the hills to see how it fared. It's still early in the fall, but the river was roaring and the trail lush and green. We even found a frog on the trail. There were trilliums and tiarella, well past bloom, but still green. This seems like a good for them.

The trail is much itself, though they've moved to parking area and the trailhead a bit up the road. It's a much bigger lot and the trail still begins with a descent to cross one of the forks of the river.


Mushroom season

The Little River Trail with a bit of mist

More of the trail, dark trees and a lot of green

More trail

More trees and the gateway to the river

An old nurse log

More forest

The Little River

Another view of the river

Yet another view

And another

Pacific dogwood

Pacific dogwood covering the ground

More green forest

More dark trees

The bridge

Some old trilliums still hanging on

The frog

Another view

More trilliums

The Little River from the first bridge

Keywords: autumn, little river, trillium

09/27 - Mount Rainier - Carter Falls

It was rainy on our most recent trip to Mount Rainier. It was snowing at the top, so we explored waterfalls instead of the high country. the Carter Falls walk took us down to a stony river bed with mists and hills and waterfalls above. We didn't get as close as at Nerada Falls, but we had a nice, cold, wet time exploring.

Misty mountain with waterfalls

Zoomed in on the falls

Mists, mountains and trees

More mist

The rocky river bed

Some fall foliage

Some more mist

Some more bright colors

Down on the river bed

We followed the trail

Downriver a bit

A sapling

Mountain mist in the distance

An old log

We can watch mist for hours, if it isn't too cold and wet out.

Again

The foot bridge

The waterfalls again

A last view

Keywords: mount rainier

09/26 - Mount Rainier - Nerada Falls

We still haven't made it up to the high country of Olympic National Park. Between the destruction of the lodge, the subsequent limits on visitors, the bad air from forest fires, and forest fire and mountain lion attack related closures, we have more or less given up. Now, they are demolishing the ruins of the lodge and the area has been closed for a period, yet again.

So, we visited Mount Rainier back in late August, and returned more recently to explore some more. This time we stayed just outside the park, and this time it rained. Actually, it snowed. We didn't make it all the way up to Paradise. There were too many snow covered cars coming down. The rain was heavy where we were, and we had no desire to drive through wet snow to see the heavy fog that would be blocking any view of the mountain. Instead, we decided to cut our losses and see some of the waterfalls along the way.

We stopped at Nerada Falls and made our way down to the view point. We could hear the falls even from the parking lot. They were in full force and rain fed. We followed the trail down to the falls overlook. It was green forest and gray mists accented with bits of brightly colored fall foliage.


The back yard at our cabin, one of Betsy's

The trail to Nerada Falls

More of the trail

Lots of foliage and running water

Our first glimpse of the falls

More greenery

More of the falls

Plenty of water

Plenty of mist

Another falls view

More mist in the forest

A bit of color

The falls below

Keywords: high country, waterfall, mount rainier

August 2023September 2023 October 2023