Three Hiking Sisters: Berkley Park

Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Berkley Park

We drove up to Sunrise at Mt Rainier National Park to hike to see the wildflowers in Berkley Park. Overall, we hiked 9 miles with 1,800 ft of loss/gain. The wildflowers were spectacular and there were not many hikers along the Berkley Park trail. With a forecast of mostly cloudy, we were happy to have views of Mt Rainier! We started by going up to Sourdough Ridge from the Sunrise parking area.

View to the north from along Sourdough Ridge

Marmot looking down on us along Sourdough Ridge.

Wildflowers on the slope of Sourdough Ridge, with view of Mt Rainier and First Burroughs.

One of many ground squirrels along the trails today.

cinquefoil

At Frozen Lake we joined the Wonderland Trail heading west for 0.7 miles towards Berkley Park.

We heard the loudest whistling as we hiked down the trail, and discovered this marmot warning other marmots of the hikers passing through their territory.

Paintbrush along the trail, with a partial view of Mt Rainier on the far side of Second Burroughs

As we started down the Northern Loop Trail, we found this bright patch of wildflowers between some trees.

Bistort lighting up the side the trail.

view of Mount Fremont as we continued down into Berkley Park

There were several marmots in Berkley Park enjoying the wildflowers.

As we continued hiking down through Berkley Park, the fields of wildflowers were lush with multitudes of blossoms.

We continue about 1/4 mile beyond Berkley Camp where we found a handful of avalanche lilies still in bloom.

The wildflowers continued,

but I decided this was a good place to turn around for today.

After a lunch break, we hiked back up trough Berkley Park, enjoying the wildflowers as much as we had the first time through.

We saw many heather plants, but the blossoms were fading.

Glad to see Mt Rainier was still visible under the clouds as we returned up to the Wonderland Trail heading towards Frozen Lake. At Frozen Lake, we decided to stay on the Wonderland Trail on our way back to Sunrise, passing Sunrise Camp and Shadow Lake.