Dege Peak at Mount Rainier National Park

 For our second hike, we did the Sourdough Trail from the west end of the Sunrise Point parking area at Mt Rainier National Park. This is a 3 mile rt hike with 900 ft of elevation gain.











Looking down to Sunrise Lake and the Palisades Lake trail, where we hiked earlier today. The Sourdough Ridge is in the background.

The Sourdough Trail, follows the ridge line up towards Dege Peak, seen in the background. Part of the trail is in the trees.

Here a deer startled us, before running off.

 Part way up the trail, looking back toward Sunrise Point and Sunrise Lake.













 After 1.2 miles, the spur trail up to Dege Peak, leaves the Sourdough Trail and heads up and up.

 At the peak, we were greeted by a marmot.

 Dege Peak, 7,008 ft of elevation. We were mostly surrounded by clouds this afternoon. I hear on a clear day, the view is spectacular!












We also saw a couple of pica, here is a fuzzy zoom photo:

We had a little bit of clearing to the southeast as we were heading back down the trail.

 To the east, we had a nice view of Clover Lake and Sunrise Lake.

The best view of Mt Rainier we had today.

The hillside was full on paintbrush not yet in bloom. It will be gorgeous in a couple of weeks. Here are some of the wildflowers we did see in bloom along this trail today: