After making, lunch for Vikram and myself, I headed off to visit to Paradise, in Mount Rainier National Park. I started down Crystal mountain around 10:35 am. When I reached the end of Crystal mountain road, and was ready to turn onto WA 410, I stopped briefly to admire the road sign from the car. The sign was carved in stone, and though it is not an exceptional piece of sculpture, it does lend a touch of class to the road (I didn't take a photo of it though). Once I got onto WA 410, I followed the road (WA 123) over Cayuse pass towards Ohanapecosh. I stopped just once, at the Stevens Canyon entrance to pay the park fee. But when I the bend at Backbone Ridge and saw Rainier looming in front I had to stop to take a photo. I had seen a few glimpses of Mt. Rainier earlier, but didn't stop till I was compelled to at Backbone Ridge as you can see in the photo. It was absolutely breathtaking.
Link to map of National Park, and link to all maps of Mt. Rainier National Park.
My next stop was at Box Canyon, along the Stevens Canyon Road (WA 706). We had never visited Box Canyon before - neither of our two prior visits required driving from Stevens Canyon Entrance to Paradise. This is a lovely eponymous canyon. It is about 4-6 feet wide and 115 feet deep and the Cowlitz river flows through it. It is very unusual to have such a narrow, deep and steep walled canyon in a glaciated area. One expects to see huge U-shaped canyons like Stevens Canyon which was carved out of glaciers.
One of the trails at this spot takes one to a bridge across the canyon. From here one can look into the canyon and see how forcefully the water flows through it. The photo shows a view of the canyon from this bridge. The Cowlitz river is partly in shade, partly in sun as a vertical column in the center of the photo.
One can get another view of Box Canyon from Stevens Canyon road itself as the road is built across the canyon. The river is the white foamy column about 1.5 inches long. The water in this canyon flows swiftly enough to regularly dislodge rocks along its path. Later, when I was at Paradise, one of the park staff asked me if I heard rocks tumbling through the canyon, but I didn't.
Poking out of the ground at Box Canyon is a huge rock that has grooves in it due to erosion by glaciers that flowed over it in the past. The rock fills most of the picture. To the bottom left of the photo is asphalt from the path.
Most of the rest of the drive to Paradise passed through Stevens Canyon. It was a windy road that kept climbing. It went past Louise Lake and the Reflection lakes. I stopped at Reflection lakes with the intention of capturing Rainier and its reflection. This was not to be as there was a slight wind that prevented the water from being calm. I took a photo anyway, and you can see it below. I didn't stay long at Reflection Lakes - after all it was lunch time and I was eager to dig into my sandwiches and to reach Paradise. Besides, I could stop here on the way back to see if the wind had died down.
Some details about the photo: Rainier is called Tahoma by the American Indians. The small peak to the right of the mountain is popularly known as "Little Tahoma." The flattish area just to the left of Little Tahoma is the Muir snowfield. It's where climbers set up base camp. From Paradise, I could see climbers on this snowfield - they were tiny moving specks even through binoculars.