The Mowich Lake entrance to Mount Rainier National Park remains closed.  I can’t help it though.  I have to keep going up that way to see how close we can get.  I have become obsessed with Mowich lake.  I read that it is so beautiful.  I know there’s another lake near there that is also amazing but I want to see Mowich Lake.   Anyway… so once again we drove the little gravel road up, up and away toward Mowich Lake.  Well, this time we got all the way to the gate.  We didn’t see any snow until right by the gate.

We stopped just outside the gate (but technically still inside the National Park) at a place called Paul’s Peak and had a picnic lunch.  Anna Grace ran all over the place and had a great time.  Everything was so beautiful!!!

On our drive to the top we got so many different views of the mountain.  Here are some shots of Mount Rainier.

I took this photo from our usual spot on this drive.  That little cloud halo is a frequent thing.  On the days that it is clear this little group of clouds hangs just over the mountain and just gets lower and lower and lower.  About 40 minutes before I took this photo those clouds weren’t even touching the mountain, just hangin’ out above it.

Mount Rainier peaking though the trees.  This area is a big logging production so there are tons of open areas just filled with stumps.  Kinda sad, actually.

When I turned around from taking that previous picture, this is what I saw.  The camera didn’t pick it up real well but just above those mountains you see this white cloud looking stuff going across the photo.  That is the snow caps of the Olympic mountains (Hurricane Ridge).  I love it when you get to a place on a clear day where you see the cascades on one side of you and the Olympics on the other.

This is a view we’ve never been able to see before.  At this point we were higher than we’ve ever been able to get on this road.

There is a pull off just inside the boundary of the national park.  It overlooks this huge expanse and Mount Rainier in the middle of it.  You can hear this water running below.  We think it may have been the Nisqually River.  Everything here was just breathtaking.

Just after I took this photo we reached the gate and Paul’s Peak. I’m so glad we came up this way today but now I really can’t wait for that entrance to open!!!!!