Eastside Trail, Mt. Rainier N.P. WA

Spoiler Alert! No mountain views of any sort, no sweeping wildflower meadows, and not even our usual timed photo of the two of us. What’s happening? Have we reached the end of the magnificence? The end of our lifetime supply of energy? The end of hiking as we know it?
No, nothing like that. Today’s hike simply didn’t have all the pizazz of other recent hikes. Hey, it happens. It all turns out all right, I promise.

It was slated to be a bit cooler today than last time, but we still wanted some shady cover because we were going for distance. At 6.7 miles in, the Eastside Trail intersects with the one we did on Thursday, and we figured we’d give that distance a shot. Tally-ho! There are only two major attractions of hiking this trail in the direction we did, and the first gives it up at a mere .3 miles in with a suspension bridge spanning the river to the Grove of the Patriarchs.

Hello, hello. I’m at a place called Vertigo.

We obeyed the sign and took turns bouncing across the fun-house bridge. But where are The Matriarchs? We didn’t spend any time admiring the iconic Patriarchs and the boardwalk trail that leads visitors around them. Probably our mistake, but one we can remedy at a future date if we feel the need. If you hadn’t guessed, the Patriarchs are really, really big, really, really old trees.

 

That color never gets old.

Once the feeling of having ridden an elevator one too many times subsided, we continued on our way.

Move along, nothin’ to see here.

Okay, it’s not nothing, exactly. It’s beautiful northwest forest land, but because we are not tourists to this land, it’s the sort of scenery we are witness to on 99.9% of our hiking here. The real beauty of this trail is that it has very minimal gain, if any, so it’s quite easy to rack up the miles.

Unexpected!

At approximately four miles in, we encountered this, what I considered the second major attraction. None of the (sparse) recent trip reports included photos of this, so we were pleasantly surprised.

How do they build the bridges across places like this? 

And why doesn’t the railing go all the way to the end?

After this crossing, the trail resumes its forested route, which did save us on sunscreen for the day. We continued on for a couple more miles, encountering two of only four people we’d see shortly afterwards. At just over the six-mile distance, we came to another large bridge and another hiking couple who were on their last day of a four-day trek. I didn’t talk to them because I wasn’t feeling chatty, but TBG did, so that’s how I know. We paused here for our break once they’d moved out. The way back was quick and quiet.

Now with sun-dappling!

As expected, there were weekend crowds beginning to form at the suspension bridge, deterring us from dipping our toes. The trail was getting congested by an endlessly fascinating parade of park visitors.  It’s always interesting (and sometimes ‘interesting’ is a kind descriptor) to see their varied attire and hear their snippets of conversation as we pass. We must look like we know what we’re doing because we get stopped a lot by others seeking information on distances, etc. We consider it good training for our future as campground hosts.

See you next week!