Day 8 Monday Sept 9: No tea/coffee this morning as longer hike planned. Drove to the Visitor's Center at the base of the mountain and found the trail head to the Skyline Trail. A couple of deer guarded this one. Uphill. We walked uphill. But boy was it worth it. We saw a fox that ducked out of sight before I could deploy my camera. I did get a couple of nice shots of a coyote, plenty of marmots, ground squirrels and just missed a pica. About 5.5 miles and 1700 feet elevation gain in 3.5 hours was enough for us this day. Looked into the Inn and stopped at the Visitor's Center to look at the stuff for sale when it hit me that we should get a souvenir magnet for the camper fridge door.The door is steel, right? Right! Drove back to campsite, popped back up and prepared for showers again. Problem: the shower wand quick disconnect wouldn't connect quick or slow. After much poking and prodding we finally fell back on the oft forgotten trick of reading the manual. It suggested a non-toxic lubricant such as Vaseline would do the trick. I took stock of my lubricants on hand and selected WD-40 over canola oil spray despite not being clear on its toxicity. After a bit more poking we had our very welcome showers. Relaxed the rest of the afternoon before a dinner of pasta with bacon and onion sauce (we eat a lot of pasta). Made plans for tomorrow.
Day 9 Tuesday Sept 10: Full breakfast for us anyway of cereal along with tea/coffee since we were planning an easy day. Packed up and drove back to the VC to do the gentle Nisqually Vista Trail. Just 1.6 miles and minor elevation change. Insanity began to set in and we abandoned our easy day idea as we start climbing up the west side of the many trails leading from the VC area. "Let's go to this next crest and see what's there before we turn back." was our mantra. I call it donkey hiking. You see the carrot a short way ahead and by the time you get there you see another carrot just ahead so you keep going like the donkey cart with the carrot dangling in front of the dumb beast. We ended up at Glacier Vista before sanity set in and we staggered back down. Drove East past Reflection Lake which didn't before pulling into Ohanapecosh C.G. at the SE corner of the park. Set up and found a trail head leaving from the CG to Silver Falls. Hiked out to the falls but by the time we got back I was suffering from a blister on my left heel and was tired and cranky. An uneventful shower and cool drink with ice no less mellowed me out. I learned a while back that Crystal Lite makes water from a Camelback drinkable and rum makes Crystal Lite drinkable. Gin would probably work too. Experiment time for dinner: I had recently discovered that Trader Joe's Pub Cheese has almost the exact same ingredients used to make macaroni and cheese. So... we cooked up some rotelli and spooned in a generous amount of pub cheese, seasoned it, added the bacon (of course) and enjoyed. No bake mac and cheese far better than boxed stuff. Spent quite a while sorting out our plans for the last days of the trip since we want to be home Saturday night.
Pic 1: Coyote surveying its domain. Mt. Rainier N.P.
Pic 2: The marmots were rehearsing "The Lion King" but I got a picture during a break. That's Mt. Adams in the background.
Pic 3: Our rig in front of Mt. Rainier