Spray Park and Beyond Summer Hike

Today, we headed up to Mowich Lake on the west side of Mt Rainier National Park to hike up to Spray Park and a bit beyond. The hike up and through Spray Park is an 8 mile round trip with about 2000 ft of elevation gain overall (lots of ups & downs). We hiked up on a boot path above Spray Park for a closer look at Mt Rainier and then continued on a ways toward Seattle Park for an 11 mile round trip hike with at least 2400 ft of elevation gain.

The trailhead is located at the south end of Mowich Lake and begins with a short descent into the woods.

There were lots of wildflowers in bloom along the forest path.

About 1.5 miles up the trail is a very short spur trail to Eagle Cliff Viewpoint, where we had a gorgeous view of Mt Rainier.

At 2 miles from the trailhead, there is an 0.1 mile spur trail to Spray Falls. This is the view of the falls from the north side of Grant Creek.

 View of Spray Falls from the south side of Grant Creek.

 A little help in crossing Grant Creek.


















From the spur trail to Spray Falls it is 0.8 steep miles through the forest up to the beginning of Spray Park

 We saw lots of wildflowers in bloom.

 There were so many beautiful views to take in along the 1.2 mile trail through Spray Park.

We took a short spur trail to the north overlooking Mist Park.

 Then continued climbing up the trail through Spray Park.

About 4 miles from the trailhead, there is a large cairn, to the west is a boot track going up closer to the mountain. This boot track is about 0.7 of a mile with 400 ft of elevation gain.

 It is a well defined boot track

with more wildflowers to be seen along the way.

We enjoyed our lunch from the top of this track, we are at about 6800 ft of elevation. 

Panoramic View of Mt Rainier from our lunch spot:

 Here Mt Rainier is seen between Echo Rock on the left and Observation Rock on the right.

 We saw a beautiful tarn, nestled between snow fields.








There were lots of butterflies among all the wildflowers. I was able to get one picture today.

 Hiking back down the boot trail to the main trail.









So many wonderful views!

 Back at the large cairn at the foot of the boot track, on the main trail looking north east. We decided to hike on a bit further.

 As the trail descended and crossed a snowfield, we lost the trail among all the rocks. We decided to do a short scramble straight ahead to see what we could see.

Panoramic view to the northwest from our turn around point.

 Looking back at Mt Rainier to the southeast.

 I think we are looking down toward Seattle Park here.

 A couple more beautiful views as we returned through Spray Park on our way back to the trailhead.

 Some of the many flowers we saw on our hike today: